


saw you staring up to his window, did you like what you saw?

by biinu



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Character Death, M/M, Obsession, Psychological Horror, Stalking, but not really, very brief mentions of sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 09:46:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biinu/pseuds/biinu
Summary: “Oh man. You’re truly something, Seo Changbin,” Woojin propped his head up on his fist. “How?”Changbin thought of all the times he lurked around Chan’s apartment, followed him to the gym, observed him in the grocery store from afar, watched Chan take strolls in the park. He thought of the time he listened to Chan sob in his car after a nasty break-up (months, truly months ago) and how perfectly neutral Chan looked the next day. Changbin thought about how he has acquired the tools to make Chan fall for him.“Luck.”





	saw you staring up to his window, did you like what you saw?

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i do NOT condone any of the unlawful behaviour any of the characters display and neither do i agree with the protagonist's (changbin) train of thought. there is also a teensy bit of slutshaming in this fic, though its like one paragraph so i figured a heads up like this would suffice. and vomit/vomiting is also mentioned/occurs once. please be careful reading!
> 
> this is a fic from last year i decided to bring back to life. i went a little bit crazy with it i guess, let's see what happens :) have fun reading and thanks to everyone who's given me feedback on it so far (em, jess, etc) xxx

Changbin was trying to ask Chan out.

 

His confidence shrinked with every time he attempted to speak to Chan about his feelings . . . again. A date was all he wanted, a chance, and his best friend and colleague tried to encourage him. But Changbin was in doubt after that day.

 

It wasn’t like Chan had rejected him, right? Changbin had just misunderstood. So he made it his task to properly understand what would get Chan to make such a decision regarding Changbin’s feelings. Chan was perfect, handsome and intelligent, Changbin didn’t doubt there were other men and women that were trying to get his attention. Changbin wasn’t jealous of that, Chan’s life didn’t revolve around him and he understood and respected that. As long as he didn’t put any effort into approaching Chan and building a relationship, Chan’s life would continue without him and that was fine.

 

Changbin eventually figured that what he needed to do in order to get Chan’s attention— and with that, also attraction— was to stand out.

 

Chan didn’t. At their workplace, Chan was quiet, did his work and then went home. He was an example, always the comparison the others should live up to when their boss was scolding them for working too slowly or handing in sloppy reports. If there was a monthly award given out for the people who displayed extraordinary work, Chan would be getting every single one.

 

Unlike Changbin believed, many people disliked Chan for exactly that. They hated being compared to Chan. Changbin however, felt his heart flutter whenever Chan was brought up.

 

The reason Chan ‘rejected’ him— didn’t take his confession well, like Changbin chose to label it— had to be that there were other people trying to get his attention. So yes, Changbin had to stand out.

 

He came up with a variety of plans on how to do that, on how to find out what Chan liked so that he could enjoy the same things, to find something to bond over. All of those plans were time-consuming, so Changbin tried something else.

 

He documented his progress carefully, although he knew what he was doing wasn’t exactly . . . morally right. But he wasn’t trying to harm Chan. He was just trying to find out what he enjoyed and what he did, who he met up with and who Changbin could potentially be ‘competing’ against. As long as he wasn’t doing any real harm, he was good, right?

 

Tonight was another one of those in which Changbin pulled the hood of his black hoodie deep into his face only when he had reached Chan’s property. Changbin believed hiding out in the open helped. At this time of day, no one was really outside anymore, although plenty of lights were still on in the houses, and so were Chan’s.  Still, there _could_ be someone out, and so sneaking around with a hood on didn’t really reflect his innocent intentions. Confidence and being straight forward was key.

 

Changbin walked around the house, his camera dangling around his neck. His shoes got stuck in the mud for a second, making an awful squeaking sound that made Changbin freeze. He reminded himself that confidence was key and moved on.

 

The weather was acting up a lot these days. It would be crushingly hot for days on end, then compensate with chilly nights and rain. Lots and lots of rain. Every garden was a slippery mess, so Changbin tried hard not to either get stuck in the muddy grass again or slip and fall.

 

He walked around the house, careful, and tried to determine where exactly Chan currently was. Although Chan lived in the bottom apartment of a two apartment block, Changbin would have to climb on a tree. The house was built on a higher platform, basically on top of the garages and a flight of stairs led to it. Changbin just had to hope that Chan was either in his kitchen, living room or bed room. He knew his house had more rooms, but he wouldn’t have access to the other side of the house because there was a street, meaning no trees or shadows.

 

Changbin saw Chan’s figure tamper with something in the kitchen, but he looked as if he was in a rush. Before climbing on a tree that would hide him and show him exactly what Chan was doing, he waited. Chan would probably be leaving the room any second.

 

And it was true. Changbin watched his love leave and Changbin tried to guess where he’d be going. It was a tuesday, it was eleven pm . . . one of Chan’s favourite anime could be broadcasted today. Changbin was yet to figure out the schedules, but he found out he was right.

 

After inviting himself into Chan’s apartment when Chan was at work and he was off, Changbin had learned that Chan was a huge anime and video game fan. Somehow—maybe it was prejudice— Changbin imagined fans of such media to be rather bubbly with bright personalities. Chan wasn’t either, he was reserved and quiet and barely ever talked. Yet he radiated something . . . special, peculiar, which intrigued Changbin and eventually made him fall.

 

Chan’s head disappeared and Changbin figured he got settled on the couch.

 

Changbin headed for the same tree he always used when Chan was in the living room, so he made sure his camera wouldn’t be damaged as he climbed and got to work. The branches felt familiar, Changbin having done this so often that everything basically happened by itself. He didn’t do anything, only thought about how Chan could look tonight and what he was watching tonight. Later when he got home, Changbin would catch up on the show Chan was watching so that he had another topic to talk about with him.

 

Not that he ever did. Changbin was too shy to approach Chan, especially after his confession didn’t go the way he wanted it to. But as of recently, he really had been trying hard to conquer his fear. It couldn’t get worse, Changbin tried to convince himself, and his confessions lay months in the past. He could try again.

 

Chan hadn’t even given him a first chance yet, but Changbin firmly believed that he would get a second.

 

Roughly twenty seconds later and Changbin had reached the perfect position. His leg got stuck between two branches as he didn’t pay close attention, and so he tried to twist it out of their grasp. One hand instantly went up to cup and protect his camera, the older clung to a thicker branch and was therefore holding his whole weight. It was dangerous, kicking around like that with barely any stability, but Changbin didn’t quite realize that.

 

Eventually the branches broke and Changbin slipped down. He hugged his camera to protect it and had to take a branch to the crotch. “Fuck,” Changbin hissed and bit down on his lips, searching the area beneath him for other branches. He swung one leg over the branch he was sat on and supported himself by placing it on another. Still holding the camera, Changbin bent over and tried to bite back his groans, drawn out of his mouth by the throbbing pain in his lower area.

 

He looked back to the window and found that he was still on a good enough level to see Chan well. Until the pain subsided, Changbin would simply sit like he was now and do what he wanted to do like this.

 

Chan was watching an anime, Changbin was fine with watching the back of his head. He remembered one time, where Chan was watching an anime with beautiful and captivating visuals. He had looked away from Chan for only a minute and already become invested; Changbin ended up watching the anime with him, not needing sound, only realizing what he was doing when Chan moved to get something to eat. He didn’t want that to happen again. (Although, when he went home, he tried everything he could to find out which anime movie it had been. Changbin was yet to watch _Your Name_ again.)

 

He rose the camera to his face and made a few pictures of Chan’s room. When the screen got bright and the scene on the screen looked . . . important enough, maybe memorable, Changbin would snap a picture of it so he could look for it later.

 

The night passed like every night Changbin spent outside of Chan’s house.

 

When the movie ended, Changbin watched Chan leave the room that very instant.

  
  
  
  


Chan left the room and entered his bedroom instead. Most of the time, Chan was already changed into his sleepwear when Changbin arrived. Today was a rare occasion where he hadn’t.

 

Changbin moved, grabbing onto the trunk of the next tree and lifting himself off the branch he was sat on. He swung his legs around a diagonally growing but stable branch and eventually positioned himself as comfortably as he could.

 

He was well aware that this didn’t have anything to do with his ‘mission’ — he wanted to find out what Chan liked and who Chan was with.

 

When Chan started changing, Changbin’s face flushed over. He knew he should be going now. But it wasn’t the first time he did it. Although he had enough material to keep a conversation with Chan up for ten years, Changbin didn’t seem to be able to stop . . . doing this. It had become part of his daily life; thinking about Chan, preparing himself to ask Chan out, and following Chan around or inviting himself over to his house.

 

Yes, Changbin knew that wasn’t good.

 

But he didn’t stop anyway.

 

And so when Chan took off his pants and underwear to change, Changbin offered little— or no— hesitation when he took pictures of it. Except something did take Changbin by surprise.

 

Instead of changing into sweatpants like always, Chan picked out a formal outfit. A suit jacket, the matching pants, he even got an expensive watch out of his first drawer. Chan held up two dress shirts, a white one and a black one, and spent a moment trying to decide which one to wear. Chan ultimately went with the black one and also picked a black tie.

 

Changbin didn’t lower his camera as Chan changed. The man he loved in such an outfit was indeed a sight to fawn over, and Changbin would probably spend many nights awake thinking about it. As Chan turned in the mirror to inspect himself, Changbin attempted to get as many photos as he could when Chan faced him.

 

Faced him?

 

Instead of panicking, Changbin kept the camera in place. It was dark, his face was light; if he were to lower it and back away, that would catch Chan’s attention. A thought swirled in his mind, claiming that it was exactly what Changbin wanted. But not under these circumstances. He knew it would end with a restraining order and probably losing his job as well.

 

And he was right, Chan hadn’t seen him. He just went to close the tilted window properly, probably because of the breeze that Changbin had felt as well. Then he turned back to examining himself in the mirror and adjusting his hair.

 

When Chan was done, he snatched his phone off the nightstand, pocketed it, and left the room.

 

Changbin waited, then lowered his camera and listened.

 

After barely a few minutes the front door swung open and Chan appeared. Changbin backed into the leaves, hoping that he would go unnoticed. As if it would provide extra safety, Changbin pulled his hoodie deeper into his face and held the camera in front of his mouth. Only his eyes were free now, and if Chan spotted him, he wouldn’t know who it was.

 

Chan unlocked his car, got in and spent a couple of moments on his phone. From where he was positioned, Changbin saw the car from the side and therefore only the driver’s seat. But that was all that he needed to see. Then Chan pocketed his phone again, started the car and drove off.

 

He stayed there for a little. Thinking about what he should do next.

 

Changbin convinced himself that Chan wasn’t going on a date. It was too late for that. Who went on a date at eleven PM? It was way too late.

 

Tomorrow, Changbin would ask Chan out. He wouldn’t invite himself into Chan’s apartment tonight. He was going to spend the whole night convincing himself to do it. He was going to talk to Chan.

 

Tomorrow, Changbin would get a date with Chan.

 

And after that, he would find out what Chan was up to tonight.

 

▲ ▼ ▲

  
  


The next morning, Changbin arrived at the office and was lucky enough to find a parking spot right in front of it. Changbin checked his phone and entered the building, his heart beating so fast against his ribcage that he feared it would pop out. Trying over text would be so much easier, giving him the benefit of not having to worry about his own awkward reaction to being turned down. But he felt like he had to ask Chan in person. _Cheer up,_ he told himself. _There is a little chance that he’ll say yes._

 

Changbin took two—tried to take three—steps at a time, in order to lose the adrenaline rush that he felt so that he wouldn’t be nervous throughout work and especially not when it was time to speak with Chan. Bang Chan, with the pretty lips and the huge, curious eyes. Blood shot into his face, dusting his cheeks pink as he thought about being with Chan. _It’s ridiculous. I’m not sixteen anymore._

 

In fact, he was six years older than that, and it was his first time trying to initiate a serious, hopefully long-term relationship. Provided Chan liked him too, that is. Confidence was key, and so he brushed that thought aside and bowed to his colleague in greeting as she passed. All he had to do was sit around the whole day, pretending to do the paperwork he was assigned, and chat with Woojin. Observing when it was the right time to go and talk with Chan. His plan said to go and stop him when his shift was about to end— he’d be in a rush to get home, and to get rid of Changbin he would rush a quick ‘sure’ and leave. When Changbin would call him about it, he was sure Chan would be too nice to say that he wasn’t actually interested.

 

 _What am I thinking,_ Changbin groaned internally and pitied himself. He needed Woojin’s advice, desperately at this point. Woojin’s pep talks were incredible—it was like he shared his confidence with him. Though recently, Woojin had been kind of different.

 

Finally Changbin arrived at his office—the one he was lucky enough to be sharing with Woojin, but unlucky enough to be also sharing it with the guy who simply couldn’t shut up about gossip—he found that both of his colleagues were already there. He glanced at his wristwatch, only to realize that he was half an hour late.

 

They worked quite independently, so as long as nobody told the boss, he doubted she would notice that he hadn’t shown up to work at all. But here he was. Ready for work, but not ready for Chan.

 

“Hey,” Changbin cleared his throat and Woojin tore his gaze from his computer screen to welcome him, unlike Kang Younghyun, who continued like he hadn’t heard Changbin come in. Changbin was unsure if he had done something that offended Younghyun, or if he simply didn’t like him. He hoped that the latter was the case.

 

“Have you read the email?” Woojin asked when Changbin was sat and turning on his computer.

 

“I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I didn’t check it.” Changbin responded. Chan was quite obviously the reason. “What’s it about?”

 

“Come over here,” Woojin gestured for him to join him, and out of the corner of his eyes Changbin saw that Younghyun had looked past his screen, at them. Changbin did as he was told, and grabbed the bureau chair next to Woojin.

 

Woojin had opened his email server and re-opened an email he had already responded to.

 

_Ladies and Gentlemen,_

 

_Due to proven charges of sexual misconduct against seven female employees, boss Lee Hwiseok was removed from his position. The next few days will follow under coordination of Bang Chan, who will temporarily be in charge until a new head is appointed. Suggestions made to Bang Chan to take the position were declined._

 

“Finally got that bastard, eh?” Younghyun said, raising his brow. “Was about time.”

 

Changbin was in awe about the very beginning of the email—so much so that he basically disregarded the rest of it. They were only instructions, yet Changbin had to borrow a graphic tablet to reply with a signature in order to signalize that he had read it. He always found that to be a stupid measure, but since Kim Mina suggested it, it became common. Well, he hadn’t read the instructions and he wouldn’t in the future. _Chan is the boss now. Hot._

 

“Why did he decline? That’s so fucking dumb,” Woojin said, cussing on purpose to make Changbin look at him. “I mean, he could have had all.”

 

“Maybe it’s too much responsibility,” Changbin replied, half in thought. Chan was so hardworking, no wonder he was the first person taken into consideration. But that meant that from now on, Changbin had to turn in all his reports to Chan, have them checked and approved of by Chan. If the question he was burning to ask him received an answer of the bad kind, Changbin would rather be buried alive.

 

“Probably it. Chan seems the type to do easy work and go home.”

 

“ _Easy work_ got him that position? _You’re_ fucking dumb, Kim Woojin.” Younghyun responded, and Changbin spotted Woojin balling his fist. “He just doesn’t _brag._ He’s quiet. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t work.”

 

It was the first time Changbin agreed with Kang Younghyun. He hoped that wouldn’t turn into a frequent occurrence. “He can do what he wants to,” Changbin said, then. “I look forward to working with him.”

 

Woojin’s eyes darted upwards to challenge him with a doubtful look, but Changbin waved it off. When he returned to his own desk, he noticed Younghyun’s weird gaze, and just prayed that he didn’t suspect anything. That man didn’t know how to shut his mouth.

 

Woojin closed the tab. “Don’t forget to sign.”

 

“Yes, yes,” Changbin mumbled and headed to the cabinet to get the graphic tablet they shared. They barely needed it; their work didn’t include graphic design of any kind. Only signatures. Lots of them. Usually, Changbin would have his signature saved as a JPEG file and use it multiple times. But as of recently their storage had to be completely cleansed after multiple virus attacks and therefore Changbin had to re-do it repeatedly.

 

Once he had unpacked and installed it, he opened the program in which he signed, quickly closed it and opened his email server to paste it there and send. He decided against his initial thought, and would read the email once more, but thoroughly. He still couldn’t quite believe it. Chan was the boss from monday on. Only for a limited amount of time, but still . . . it was impressive.

 

He found that he had nine unread emails. He opened the bottom one with the familiar address, and read through the plans and instructions. He pasted his signature when he was done, only half agreeing with the content but having no choice anyway, and turned to open the rest.

 

Changbin didn’t recognize the email address, but the eight emails were all from the same person. He opened the first one, sent at three AM in the morning.

 

The subject line read: 1/8

 

He was met with a completely black picture, and no other content. No text, nothing. Only a black picture.

 

Changbin closed it and contemplated disregarding the other emails, but he did want to know what else was related to the image.

 

Giving in, Changbin opened the next email. As expected, the subject line was 2/8, and it did not have any other content than a picture. This one was slightly lighter, depicting a faint light source in the top right corner.

 

As he kept opening emails, he realized the photos appeared to show a process of some sorts. The further in he was, the lighter the picture got, but he was still unable to make out anything in particular. He started to become uneasy, and he tried to detach his eyes from the screen to see if for whatever reason one of his colleagues was watching. Not that it would be too much of a big deal, he told Woojin everything anyway, and would probably do so when Younghyun left for a coffee or a chat with the pretty ladies from the next door office.

 

When he reached the final one, 8/8, Changbin was taken aback by the the only thing he could make out.

 

He couldn’t have been mistaken.

 

A small candle shown from above illuminated the picture from its position in the top right corner. It was a floor, and drops of liquid red were scattered across the picture. Some of them bigger, others smaller, but Changbin was sure that it wasn’t anything other than what he knew it was. Changbin couldn’t see blood, though.

 

Changbin closed the tab as soon as he had realized.

 

 _What?_ Was the only thought he could manage, and deleted the emails. He took another look at the address. No, he definitely didn’t recognize it, but it was easy to create one to prank him. Only somebody who knew about his inability to see blood would do something like that, though, even if his hemophobia wasn’t particularly bad, and the only one that came to mind was Woojin. It wasn’t normally something to talk about, but Woojin had once suggested a movie that Changbin had _already_ seen, but only the first few minutes of it.

 

As if he would be able to catch Woojin—who should think that Changbin was checking his emails since he didn’t do so last night—Changbin looked up as abruptly as possible, hoping to catch him staring at him with a mischievous grin. But he wasn’t.

 

Woojin was photographing something off the computer, when he was done, he seemed to add a caption to it and send it. Then he put it aside and resumed his work.

 

“Woojin? Could you come over please?” Changbin said, voice shakier than he had thought it would be. He hated blood. Changbin cleared his throat and touched it.

 

His friend nodded and did as Changbin asked, bowing down to him when he leaned on the desk. “What’s up?”

 

Changbin lowered his voice so Younghyun wouldn’t hear. “Did you send me those pictures?

 

“What pictures?”

 

“It’s not funny, Woojin. Did you?”

 

“I’m telling you, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Woojin responded, almost getting defensive. If he was responsible for it, he would normally break into a wide grin because he didn’t know how to contain himself. Changbin knew that Woojin was truthful, but he would rather him not to be. “What pictures?”

 

“Never- nevermind then,” Changbin said, and nodded at Woojin’s seat across the room. “Forget it.”

 

“No, tell me—”

 

“It’s okay, Woojin, later.”

 

Woojin’s expression changed from slightly annoyed to worried, and Changbin figured it was due to the lack of colour in his face. The amount of blood he saw wasn’t enough for him to feel faint, but he could imagine that he went slightly pale.

 

“You okay?” Woojin asked, with a slight undertone of worry.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I just thought it was . . . weird.” Changbin ended the conversation with an insisting look, and Woojin retreated to his desk. Their colleague did not bat them an eye.

  
  


The image kept popping up in Changbin’s brain, but eventually Changbin settled it with himself— someone probably made a mistake with the email they actually wanted to send the pictures to and kept selecting his when sending the other pictures. _How stupid,_ Changbin thought, _could have just attached them all in one email._

 

Changbin went about polishing up his report. He finished writing a long time ago, the deadline was close, and he only had to read through everything and edit what sounded unprofessional or inaccuracies he spotted. Woojin had long turned in his report. What Younghyun was up to, he didn’t really care.

  
  
  


Time went by quickly, and as the ticking clock progressed, Changbin started to feel unwell. He couldn’t afford sweating too much, not now; his determination was still there and after that day, he had struggled regaining it, so this was perhaps his only chance to get over himself and do it. Chan was nice. He was nice. Changbin liked him. Maybe Chan did like him, too.

 

 _Oh god,_ Changbin thought when the clock showed Chan’s shift end. _Here we go._

 

“I’m going to catch up to Chan now,” Changbin said. Younghyun had long left the office to chat up his recent catch, so he wasn’t around to pry and Changbin could speak freely.

 

“Good luck, man,” Woojin said and nodded at him. “You need a pep talk?”

 

“No, no, let me just go now before I change my mind.” Changbin replied and felt his burning stomach complaining. He was doing this, he really was, but his stomach didn’t like it.

 

As soon as Woojin had confirmed his approval, Changbin was out of the door and headed to the main exit. His steps were quick and stiff, and Changbin should save the smiles he was giving everyone he passed to distract from his odd behaviour for Chan.

 

He found him leaving, body half through the door already. It was perfect, nobody would see them. The staircase was usually empty. Chan was always the last one from the people who shared his shift to leave.

 

Changbin slipped through the door with a nod at the secretary and stopped Chan.

 

Chan turned around, and Changbin tried not to focus too much on Chan’s appearance. He was wrapped into a tight coat, looking too elegant for their humble office setting. Chan was handsome, with his big, curious eyes and the heartshaped lips that Changbin loved dearly. He was doing it.

 

The second time Chan asked what’s up, Changbin actually replied.

 

“I hope I’m not annoying you. I’ve—I’ve been thinking for a while and, well, you already know that I like you a lot . . .” Changbin trailed off to expect Chan’s reaction, but there was next to none. His lips were still slightly curled upwards into the friendly smile that Changbin liked.

 

He continued. “Therefore I wanted to ask you if you—perhaps—were interested in going—uh, going on a date with me?” _That wasn’t so terrible._

 

Chan didn’t say anything for a while. Changbin knew he chewed over everything he said once, twice in his head before he spoke it, so he didn’t instantly expect the worst. But what put him off was that little smile of Chan’s had been reduced to one corner of the mouth, which made him look like he was pitying Changbin. Changbin sincerely prayed that that was not the case.

 

“You know my answer, Changbin.” Chan then said, and Changbin’s heart dropped into his boots.

 

He still tried, though. “Yes?”

 

It was his hopeful tone that brought Chan’s smile back. “That wasn’t the answer, but okay. Alright.”

 

“What—what was the answer?” Changbin already knew.

 

“Nevermind it. Yes, Changbin, let’s go on a date. Can I call you about this? I seriously have to speed home now. Pray I don’t get caught.” Chan’s smile faded into an apologetic expression that was more comical than pitying.

 

Changbin nodded, utterly relieved and secretly so ecstatic he felt as though he was about to combust into flames. “Of course, yes. I’ll be waiting for your call, then.”

 

A moment of obvious hesitation brushed over Chan, then he placed his hand on Changbin’s arm and came closer. Chan’s face was right in front of Changbin’s now, eyes darting left and right on his face. Changbin feared that he did something wrong, or that Chan thought differently of him now. He swallowed hard, heart thumping in his chest with Chan being so close to him. Then Chan patted his arm twice in goodbye and left.

 

Changbin stood there in place for a few more seconds, watching Chan descend before retreating into the workplace, still not knowing what to think, and if what just happened was actually real.

 

“Are you okay?” the secretary asked.

 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Changbin’s nervousness was practically washed away. He had mixed emotions, but he wasn’t nervous anymore.

 

“Your whole face is red, Seo Changbin.”

 

“Ah—yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

 

With that, Changbin excused himself to the bathroom to wash his face with cold water. He was in desperate need of a cool down before he recapped everything for Woojin later.

  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  


Woojin was speechless. Younghyun still hadn’t returned, which was good, so Changbin could speak freely about what had just happened. Woojin usually was all for Changbin’s advances and definitely wanted him to be happy with Chan, but as Changbin told Woojin of what happened, the latter didn’t seem pleased. With his falling expression and furrowing brows, Changbin was tempted to stop mid-sentence. Yet, he finished explaining the happenings and waited for Woojin’s answer when he was done.

 

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t like that,” Woojin said, and it was like a slap in the face to Changbin.

 

“What? Why?” Changbin’s facial expression resembled Woojin’s now.

 

“From what you’ve told me I can tell that Chan did not want to agree to that date. He just did because you wanted him to, with your reply. You said yes when he told you that you knew his answer, but he actually wanted you to say no.” Woojin’s painfully honest explanation burned in Changbin’s chest.

 

“How do you know?”

 

Woojin raised his eyebrows.

 

He was right. Chan had wanted Changbin to shut up. Changbin caught him in a time where Chan was rushing to get home— knowing this, Changbin was scared of what Chan would tell him on the phone. He was now in a somewhat conflicted state, for one part of him wanted to believe what Woojin said, while the other clung to its innocent want.

 

Changbin asked Woojin what he expected him to do.

 

Woojin said he should wait.

 

“If Chan makes fun of you, you tell me, okay?” Woojin said after a pause. Changbin looked up from his computer screen to find Woojin’s stern look upon him.

 

“Why would he—”

 

“Just let me know.”

 

Changbin nodded slowly and returned to work. Editing his paper was difficult considering Chan was all that was on his mind. The end of his working hours was approaching too, but Younghyun always liked to do a progress check since their projects were similar. He couldn’t afford Younghyun finding that he barely even did anything to improve what he had written.

 

Changbin closed his eyes for a moment, just to relax. Woojin’s face popped into his brain, along with the words from just now. Everything was so unnecessarily difficult for Changbin—if Woojin had just kept his mouth shut . . .  he wouldn’t feel some kind of guilt for being persistent. Had he been too persistent with Chan? Was he unintentionally forcing him to go on a date with him? That wasn’t what he wanted. That was harmful and not his intention. God, thoughts were too difficult to keep up with. Perhaps he was overthinking.

 

“Didn’t you have pictures that you wanted to show me?” Woojin pulled him out of thought.

 

“Right . . . I don’t know. I figured it must have been the wrong email address.”

 

He opened the server and contemplated opening the emails again. Truthfully, he didn’t want to see the pictures again no matter how light the first few pictures were. So he settled on forwarding them to Woojin, making sure that he kept them in the same order so that Woojin wouldn’t accidentally have to see the process unfold in the wrong direction. “Sent them.”

 

Changbin stopped working to watch Woojin put his cup of coffee away, nodding and entering his own server. A few moments passed where nothing happened— Changbin assumed he was already clicking through the pictures—and Woojin’s slowly pulled his brows together.

 

“I thought you can’t see blood?”

 

“Who said that it’s blood, right? And like I said. Probably weren’t meant to be sent to me. This is my work email after all, must have been a mistake.”

 

“You sure?” Woojin was skeptical.

 

Changbin was, too. “Yeah . . .”

 

“Weird though. Why would anyone need that in the first place? Also, they could have just put those in one email.”

 

“Exactly what I thought. I don’t know. Maybe an old man.” Changbin replied.

 

Woojin snorted and closed the tab, muttering ‘ridiculous’.

 

The office was quiet after that.

  
  
  
  


When Changbin got home, the first thing he did was to send Chan a message. He congratulated him for receiving the position, but Chan’s reply was not one of gratitude for the congratulations. He instantly went on to the topic of them going out on a date.

 

He asked Changbin if he was free so they could talk on the phone. Changbin’s heart leaped when he read that and instantly said that he was free whenever.

 

A few seconds later, and Changbin picked up the call.

 

“Hi, Chan,” Changbin smiled so widely that he knew Chan could hear it in his voice.

 

“Hi to you, Changbin,” Chan sounded as friendly as ever. For a split second Changbin worried that that was what brought Chan to date him in the first place—his friendliness, not genuine interest. But then Chan’s voice sounded again from the other side and his worries were washed away.

 

“Where would you like to go for our date? I’m going to be a little busy the next few days, but I can manage a weekend night.”

 

“If you need to rest, though, please don’t—”

 

“It’s okay,” Chan interrupted him. “I’m sure our date will be very relaxing.”

 

Changbin felt his face heat up. He doubted Chan knew, but he always found the right words to make Changbin flustered. Then again, anything Chan said to him would drive him crazy.

 

“I was thinking that we could go to the recently opened cat café in Seoul? I heard you liked cats,” Changbin suggested, and Chan laughed.

 

“Love them. That sounds like a great idea. Saturday, then? I’ll figure out a time and text you?”

 

Changbin was smiling brightly as he gave his reply. “Sure. I’ll be waiting for your message.”

 

And that was all. Chan hung up shortly after, but Changbin wasn’t too disappointed that the conversation didn’t last longer. Chan spoke when he had to, and was in general not a man of many words. Changbin spoke enough for the both of them.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Changbin was lying on his back, facing the ceiling and contemplated date ideas when his phone vibrated on his stomach. He didn't grab it, he let it be—Changbin didn't feel like answering anybody now. It was just a message, single vibration.

 

He had already grabbed his phone before his mind caught on it. The bright screen shining in his face revealed that it wasn't Chan but Woojin, and Woojin was apparently still typing.

 

_I'm outside your house_

 

_Open or I might get murdered here_

 

He sighed. Woojin had always been dramatic, dramatic enough to invite himself over to Changbin's house without his knowledge. Until he got a text like that. His thumbs hovered over the screen for a second when he was trying to come up with a good response, something like 'Well die then', but it wasn't witty enough and _he_ wasn't bitter enough. Chan and him would be going on a date. Changbin felt _incredible._

 

Before he rose and stomped out of the room to open the door before Woojin fried his nerves by repeatedly ringing the bell until it broke, he got a glance of Woojin typing again. He flew down the stairs and his feet scratched over the old, miffy carpet that led to the door.

 

Woojin's long shadow lurked beyond the window, his frame hidden behind the door. His hand rose to his head multiple times before Changbin finally opened the door for him.

 

He didn't know why, but seeing Woojin like that startled him. His best friend was simply looking over his shoulder, scanning the area with eagle eyes, nothing special or frightening. Yet it gave Changbin the impression that someone who shouldn't be there . . . _was_ there.

 

Changbin followed Woojin's glance and saw nothing but darkness. That was when Woojin actually turned his attention to him. His grin was lively, happy, and cool. "I could have sworn I saw somebody run into the bushes."

 

"Not funny," Changbin replied and made way for his friend to enter. He was taller, broader, and totally didn't squeeze Changbin against the doorframe.

 

Woojin's humour was inappropriate. He was a serious person for the greatest part, and knew when it was time to stop joking, but when he was free to do whatever he wanted his jokes could either be insensitive or unfitting.

 

Changbin was sure he wasn't the only one who didn't like to hear jokes about people lurking around his house in the dead of night. (It was ten PM.)

  
  


That was funny.

  
  


"Why are you here?" Changbin asked and closed the door with his back. Woojin stopped in the middle of taking off his coat and responded, "Do you want me to leave?"

 

He denied it. "You can crash if you want to. Just wondering why you came without notice."

 

Woojin's happy smirk appeared again, but this time it was rather hesitant. Genuine but slow. "Well, the atmosphere turned kind of thick after you kinda sorta told me about the emails and your date. And you were gone by the time I returned from having my report checked. So, um . . . I just thought we could use some actual discussing, here. Especially because . . ."

 

He trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished and his eyes averted. Changbin leaned against the door. "Especially because what?"

 

"I guess I need some advice, maybe? You've been in love for a while and ended up getting a date, which is cool, so I . . ." He cleared his throat. _You know._

 

"I get it," Changbin grinned. "That's a first."

 

"Not a first but a . . . serious." Changbin's expression was now reflected in his friend's face.

 

Changbin locked the door and headed past his friend, for the stairs. He stopped on the first step, running his hand along the staircase. "Then let's go. Tell me everything. Or wanna get something from the kitchen first?"

  
  


They ended up on Changbin's bed with a bunch of snacks and lemonade. Woojin basically claimed the biscuits as his children and with that, the box was left unopened. "Don't you want to—"

 

"Later," Woojin said again and pushed the biscuits out of reach. Well.

 

He doubted he would hear Woojin over the crunching in his ears, but proceeded to ask anyway. "So who is it?"

 

"Do you want to guess?"

 

"I'm good with everyone but Younghyun. Please don't tell me you're in love with Younghyun."

 

"First of all, I'm not in love, I'm just—into. And—"

 

"I'm gonna lose my mind. It's Younghyun."

 

Woojin rolled his eyes. "Shut up. It's not Younghyun. It's Minho."

 

"Now we're talking," Changbin grinned and shoved his legs into Woojin's abdomen, stretching himself out on the bed and backing into the headboard.  "Go on."

 

His friend thought for a while, then didn't get to Changbin's question and asked one himself. "What about you and Chan?"

 

Changbin stopped eating. "I thought this is about you now—"

 

"No, you haven't told me yet. We can talk about Minho later. Tell me about you two."

 

He put the bag of chips down into his lap and examined Woojin's face. He was propped up on his elbow, one hand buried in his own bag of chips and his eyes almost glazed over. Woojin easily held his gaze, and they fell into a silence that he couldn't quite define.

 

"Well, we're really doing this. I'm thinking of somewhere to go with him after a drink at the cat café." Changbin finally responded, his hand instinctively rising to his bangs to shove them out of his eyes. Woojin knew that was a habit he showed only when he was nervous or when he was lying. He could count the times he caught Changbin lying on one hand, however the time Changbin was visibly unnerved in his presence? He would have lost count.

 

"What about it?" He asked to find out. It was all Changbin wanted, right?

 

He moved around uncomfortably. "I'm just nervous, I guess. I don't think it can go wrong, or anything, but . . ."

 

Woojin moved a little closer.

 

"But Chan is so nice. I'm afraid he's going out with me because he wants to be nice."

 

To Changbin's surprise, Woojin scoffed.

 

"Look, I kind of doubt that. You can't expect Chan to be made out of nothing but kindness. He has common sense. He wouldn't want to let somebody force themselves on him for the sake of being kind."

 

Changbin pulled his brows together. "You think I'm forcing myself on him?"

 

"No," came Woojin's immediate response. "I was exaggerating my example. You should just realize that Chan could be unkind as well. In fact . . ."

 

"What?"

 

"What if he sent you those pictures to unnerve you?" Woojin asked, casually, but the question hit Changbin in the face.

 

He stammered before words formed. "Just _why_ exactly would he?"

 

"I don't know," Woojin admitted. "But he's one of the few people who know about your fear. One plus one."

 

"Don't be ridiculous," Changbin said. "That's enough. How would I know that it wasn't you? You're also one of the few people."

 

"I wouldn't make fun of you."

 

There was something about Woojin's tone when he said that, something protective but also strange. If Changbin didn't know that Woojin liked Minho, that statement alone spoken in that very tone would have told him that Woojin liked him. But that obviously wasn't the case.

 

"That's enough." Changbin repeated, still a little shocked at the direction their innocent conversation had escalated into. He understood Woojin's concern to a certain extent. But his friend was being weird about it.

 

Woojin let his chin drop to his chest, his whole head following the motion quickly. "Sorry. I'm just . . . confused."

 

Once again, Changbin's brows shot together. An uncomfortable feeling rose in the pit of his stomach. "What do you mean?"

 

"A lot is going on. I'm getting confused with myself here. You're in love, I'm in love, hell, _Younghyun_ is in love. A lot of things I listen to, a lot of thoughts and knowledge I have to filter. Sorry."

 

He still didn't know what exactly Woojin meant. Changbin didn't care if it meant that this conversation was over. Now . . . his friend would either tell him about Minho or he wouldn't. Either way, their night would progress calmly. Changbin didn't want a fight.

 

As if he had read his thoughts, Woojin picked up the topic and twisted it a little. "What do you do when you like somebody?"

 

Woojin was older than him by three years, still he came to Changbin every time he needed a piece of advice, like Changbin was some kind of wise old man with the key to life. He wasn't. But at the end of the day, whatever Woojin did or said that didn't sit with Changbin . . . he was always there to help. So even though he didn't like Woojin talking about Chan . . .

 

But was he ready to share?

 

Being honest with himself, just what would he tell Woojin? He didn't do anything. He sat around in front of his house at night —  and did what would make _himself_ quiver. Changbin didn't know himself.

 

"I . . . I try not to wait too long until I tell them. Chan was an exception, but even for him I didn’t wait as long as others might. I think I told him three months after I realized I truly loved him,” Changbin explained. “It’s easier in the long run.”

 

“You mean, you don’t spend too much time hoping, so that you’re not let down?” Woojin buried his hand in the chips bag.

 

Changbin brushed his dark bangs out of his face. “Hm, not exactly, but I guess that’s also a benefit. It’s more about coming to terms with things quickly. I mean, Chan rejected me at first and I’m still not over him.”

 

“It’s about finding who you truly like. Somebody you can imagine building a life with. Someone who might not be perfect, but is to you, in every single way. From the moment Chan rejected me I knew I couldn’t just . . . let it be. I didn’t want to force him, that’s why I took my time, but I wanted to express that I truly _like_ him. And now we have a date.”

 

His voice changed slightly with the last sentence, maybe it was the excitement, or it was the huge grin that appeared on his face which distorted the calmness of his voice and turned it into repressed excitement. Woojin picked up on that and laughed, chips crumbs shooting out of his mouth.

 

“Oh man. You’re truly something, Seo Changbin,” Woojin propped his head up on his fist. “How?”

 

Changbin thought of all the times he lurked around Chan’s apartment, followed him to the gym, observed him in the grocery store from afar, watched Chan take strolls in the park. He thought of the time he listened to Chan sob in his car after a nasty break-up (months, truly months ago) and how perfectly neutral Chan looked the next day. Changbin thought about how he has acquired the tools to make Chan fall for him.

 

“Luck.”

  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  


Changbin woke up to warmth.

 

Woojin was pressed to him tightly, head on his shoulder and hair in Changbin's face. This wasn't the first time--they often fell asleep in each other's beds, with each other together, and they never minded it. Woojin's brown hair tickled Changbin's cheeks when his body rose as he breathed. Yes, it wasn't the first time that the two fell asleep together, atmosphere . . . intimate.

 

'Intimate' described it well. He could wrap his arms tight around Woojin and the other wouldn't care. He could slide down and press his head to Woojin's chest and Woojin wouldn't think anything of it.

 

This bond they shared, what made their friendship . . . Changbin would be lying if he said he never once wondered what it would be like to love Woojin.

 

That thought made Changbin sigh. Truth was, he liked Chan. Because of that, he didn't want to put much thought into what Woojin could be to him. It didn't matter anyway. He shouldn't be thinking like that.

 

Changbin carefully lifted Woojin's head off his shoulder and placed it on the pillow. Woojin grabbed the blanket tighter in response, and Changbin was glad that he didn't wake. His gaze lingered on Woojin's innocent expression before he finally crawled off the bed and grabbed his phone.

 

He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Woojin behind for his morning routine and placing his phone on the sink as it turned on. Changbin shed his clothes and stepped into the shower for a brief, cool shower, which could also help his heart calm down.

  
  
  


About twenty minutes later and Woojin was already downstairs preparing breakfast. Changbin just got out the shower; Woojin would have showered too, but Changbin's clothes obviously didn't fit him so he simply stayed in what he came and would shower after work.

 

Changbin sat on his bed, dripping hair staining the sheets. He lifted his phone and the screen lightened up, revealing a single message. He didn't read it on the lockscreen and instead opened the messenger.

 

He learned an unknown number had sent him a single, odd and out of context message.

 

“I cut my hair” was all the message read. Changbin recalled the strange emails from the day before, and figured it could have been the same person. It didn’t have to be, but asking was free, right? There was nothing to lose if he did.

 

He ran a hand through his hair and yawned. Before he replied, he took another long look at the unknown number to check if he really didn’t recognize it.

 

He didn’t.

 

“Sounds great. By the way, is there any chance that you sent me eight emails yesterday? This text and those emails were from unknown people. Maybe it was you?”

 

Changbin lowered his phone and headed for his wardrobe. He wanted to get dressed and have breakfast before the person replied, so that he could focus on finding out more about them. The sudden buzz took him by surprise.

 

“Yes that’s me” read the text he received. The person had replied merely a few seconds after he himself had tapped ‘send’.

 

Changbin stopped to reply. He asked the person why they sent the pictures and what they meant.

 

“I like them” was all that they replied. Changbin locked his phone for good this time and set it aside. He would reply later, and tell Woojin about it. Changbin searched his wardrobe for acceptable things to wear to work and got dressed in the blink of an eye. His phone was buried beneath a pile of clothes-- for the sole reason that Changbin feared he could be spied on through his camera. Not pleasant when he was getting dressed.

 

When he was done, Changbin took his phone without unlocking it and headed downstairs for breakfast.

 

At the table eating cereal, his phone lit up. The iPhone lockscreen displayed multiple messages from the same number.

 

_Changbin?_

 

_Changbin?_

 

_Changbin?_

 

_Changbin?_

 

_Why don’t you reply?_

 

He furrowed his brows and quickly typed “Sorry I was in the shower. Who are you, by the way?”

 

_What do you think about the pictures?_

 

Changbin was untruthful and told them that he was only a little bit surprised, and that was it.

 

The stranger didn’t respond. After Changbin asked one more time who it was, he blocked the number and went about his day.

 

At the breakfast table, Woojin was looking especially bright. He had prepared a variety of things in no time and Changbin settled on the chair furthest away from the one that was obviously his, hair still damp and droplets of water running into his eyes.

 

"How are we today?" Woojin asked, washing his hands.

 

"I don't know yet."

 

"Fair enough, it's pretty early," Woojin took a seat and started digging in right away. For his size and shape, Woojin was able to devour ungodly amounts of food for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. Watching him eat often took Changbin's appetite, but now it was something else that made him barely touch anything on the table.

 

While Woojin minded his business and ate, Changbin pulled his phone out of his pocket and slid it over the table. "Get this."

 

"What?" Woojin unlocked it — Changbin's passcode was no secret. It would have been if Changbin was dumb enough to keep copies of his footage of Chan on there. Well, he wasn't.

 

Changbin had locked his phone with the previous conversation with a stranger open, so Woojin was instantly able to read what was up. His face grew dark and stern; Changbin himself didn't think much of it, but Woojin looked surprisingly serious.

 

Woojin sighed. "Did you block?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Mhm. Creepy." Woojin gave Changbin his phone back. Then he added, "You know what that kind of reminded me of?"

 

Changbin had just forced himself to take a bite and he looked up from his plate with a full mouth, raising his eyebrows to get Woojin to continue.

 

"You know the first ten minutes of a horror movie where the victim goes missing? This kind of gave me a creepy vibe like that," Woojin said, continuing to eat like it was nothing. But it actually stirred worry in Changbin. It was highly unlikely that Changbin was, what, a target? People went missing all the time. Usually because they were done with what their families put them through, or because they wanted to start over. These were harmless text messages.

 

"It's whatever," Changbin replied and leaned back in his chair. He was still full from last night, the messages didn't want to leave him alone and Woojin munching loudly on his food — all that killed his appetite, really.

 

"If you say so." Woojin finished up and got up to refill his plate.

 

Changbin stopped him. "You might want to slow down a little. You've been eating way too much these days, more than usually."

 

"What? I'm fine, though. You know I don't gain weight."

 

"Because you're always running around bothering people. It's not about — " Woojin cut him off. "Come on. Now eat or I'll eat your food as well."

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Work that day passed slowly. Woojin got into a fight with Younghyun and Changbin was transported back into the body of his younger self, middle schooler Changbin listening to New York's kids' sorrows and stupid fights.

 

Changbin had always been a pro at minding his own business. A friend of his back in the day -- her name was Janet-- asked him to run away with her once because her father was threatening to divorce her mom. Now that he thought about it, Changbin should have gone about it differently. Maybe he should have actually listened to her and talked her out of it. Instead, fear had hit him and Changbin avoided her for days. This eventually resulted in Janet being escorted back home by the police and put an immediate end to their friendship. Mutual, unspoken — they never talked to each other again.

 

Fear was what prevented Changbin from doing a lot of things, also when he moved back to Korea. During the fight with Younghyun (which took place because Younghyun threatened to get Woojin fired after the reveal that he was behind a few days of work), Woojin had gotten really loud despite Changbin's efforts to calm him down. On the way home, Changbin kept recalling how he pushed himself between the two to stop his friend from strangling Younghyun — which would have been reason enough to get him fired. Anyway, once Woojin had gotten louder, Changbin instantly backed away and thus made way for the gladiator in the arena.

 

In retrospect, Woojin hadn't even been _that_ loud. However Changbin had been startled and that was reason enough to go and hide by mingling with the co-workers outside their respective offices.

 

Sometimes his fear was quite burdensome, and complex at the same time. He feared a number of . . . normal things. And other things that were more worthy of that emotion were left uncared for.

 

A picture of himself fleeing the scene and how pathetic he must have looked kept reappearing in front of his inner eye. He also kept thinking about Janet, and prom, and everything that had ever sucked in his life. He got these moments often. But Changbin drew the mental line when his brain projected the day he confessed his love to Chan — that was enough. He hated thinking about that. It had already kept him awake many, many nights.

  
  
  
  
  


He skipped dinner for now and ran right to his bedroom. After visiting Chan the day before yesterday, he had been too upset to take care of the material he had gotten. After that, work, date discussion, and Woojin's visit. It was only now that Changbin was finally able to get his laptop started and arrange the pictures into their folders.

 

Chan going out like that and Changbin not knowing where to . . . needless to say he was upset. Extremely upset.

 

He made himself a coffee and settled on his comfortable chair at the desk. He plugged in the mouse and waited for the folders to load.

 

Changbin never edited his photos. He knew a thing or two about professional photography, knew how to make his camera work, had programs that could make his photos of Chan even better, but Changbin preferred the raw shots. Capturing Chan exactly how he was. Filters or lighting regulations didn’t change much, still Changbin preferred to keep the photos untouched.

 

He called up the folder, selected the content and dragged it into a different folder that was already on his desktop. Before taking a look at them, Changbin manually renamed the photos to the date they had been taken. Today was the tenth, so he changed it to two days ago.

 

The only time Changbin ever regretted taking so many pictures was when he had to rename them. It was annoying to no end. But once he was done, his coffee long finished, Changbin blinked and rubbed at his eyes. Then he got excited about checking his photos out.

  
  


He called up his major file in which a bunch of other files were located. He had separate ones for pictures/videos that documented places Chan liked to go to, another one for footage that he . . . definitely should not have, no matter how far he went with his observation, and there was also a folder of people Chan met up with.

 

Changbin had an impressive collection of photos of Chan’s ex. He was by no means a hate driven person — even if he strongly disliked someone, he was an adult and he knew to treat them with respect anyway. However, this woman was an exception. She was everything Changbin was not.

 

It had even gotten to the point where Changbin spent hours staring into the mirror, trying to figure out what he could do to get them to break up, all the while contemplating what it was that made her so attractive to Chan and what it was that he lacked. In his mind, late at night or even at work, he’d come up with a million plans to get them to break up. Only one of them was a little violent, so Changbin disregarded that idea. Still none of them promised to be foolproof, so he thought and thought and thought, and then he didn’t have to anymore because they broke up all by themselves.

 

The reason for that was absolutely _delicious_ and had Changbin smiling for days on end. And he was smiling again while clicking through the folder filled with pictures of her.

 

Cheating. Of course Changbin was not happy that Chan’d been hurt, absolutely not — but Chan was gullible and sweet and _invested_ while she obviously was just in it for a good time. Changbin was not much into women but he did have eyes and no doubt she was stunning — maybe he could understand why Chan would miss her, though he’d rather he wouldn’t, still he never should have believed he was the only one in line.

 

 _I just knew it was gonna happen,_ Changbin thought as he started deleting the pictures of her and Chan together. He’d always need the ones of her alone. _I mean, look at her. It’s pretty obvious._ She didn’t wear her low cut shirts only for Chan to ogle and her legs weren’t only his to caress, too. You could tell by looking at her.

 

Poor Chan. Changbin was still smiling as the file started decreasing in size. It wasn’t like it mattered anymore. From the looks of it, Chan had fully healed from that break up. And Chan wasn’t a good actor or good at putting up a facade either.

 

Changbin would know.

 

A pop-up appeared in the corner of the display, informing him about incoming emails. Usually he wouldn’t look at them now and wait for morning, especially because they weren’t sent to his work email and he rarely got any outside of that.

 

But tonight was different, because the pop-up also showed the subject line, and that was: 1/8.

 

“Are you fucking serious . . .” Changbin muttered and guided the cursor to close the pop-up, but he couldn’t keep up with the other incoming mails. He ended up clicking one of them, automatically closing one eye and turning his head away from the screen ever so slightly, so that the impact of the pictures from earlier wouldn’t be as strong.

 

It was worse. He’d clicked on 6/8, and it wasn’t one of the pictures he imagined.

 

It was a photo of Chan. His own shot. Changbin knew exactly it was his own shot because it was one of his favourites. Chan hadn’t straightened his naturally curly hair that day and he looked cozy and comfortable in multiple layers to hide himself from the winter cold, nose and cheeks pink and arms wrapped around himself. Changbin loved that photo so much he had it framed. Whenever Woojin came over he’d hide it under his bed because Woojin had an annoying habit of going through his drawers while he talked.

 

And all the other emails were the same. Shots of Chan where Changbin could be a hundred percent sure he’d taken those himself. But copies of those shots were only on his camera and on his laptop. Changbin’s hand trembled as it hovered above the mouse — he didn’t even dare to imagine how they’d gotten that. The email address was just gibberish, nothing he could work with.

 

More emails kept coming, always one photo at a time. Changbin would have rather had all of them in one email because he would have been able to stop clicking through them. It almost became addictive, selecting one email after the other to see what other horror it bore.

 

As if on cue, his phone started vibrating. Texts and emails started coming in in sync and Changbin was overwhelmed. Unsure of where to look, what to check first, and most importantly how to react, Changbin didn’t even think about waiting until this storm of messages was over.

 

He stopped checking the emails and unlocked his phone. An unknown number kept texting him pictures and Changbin felt like throwing up.

 

Mutilated bodies weren’t his favourite thing to look at, close up shots of pools of blood, all things that would have Changbin vomiting until he was inside out on any other normal day. Between the photos were some messages, Changbin skimmed through them before they were pushed up by more incoming messages. What was Changbin supposed to do?

 

The gory, bloody photos weren’t pleasurable to begin with, but it absolutely didn’t sit right with him that he was receiving these photos at the same time as he was receiving his own photos of Chan. He didn’t like that. He absolutely didn’t like it and . . . he kind of had an idea from who they were. He’d had blocked the number, but this must have been their second successful attempt and what they sent him now was worse than ever.

 

 _Just fucking stop, please._ Changbin wasn’t even able to tap the blocking option because all these incoming messages made his phone lag and it wasn’t reacting. _Just stop, stop, stop!_

 

And then it did. Changbin quickly blocked the number and archived the chat room (he didn’t know how to delete it) and thanked the heavens that he had the _Save In Camera Roll_ option unchecked.

 

He felt a little bit out of breath. Dizziness threw him onto an imaginary rollercoaster, and Changbin leaned forward to rub his eyes and temples. He thought he’d survived this without throwing up, but now he wasn’t so sure that would last anymore. A particularly persistent thought about one of the photos he’d been forced to see was what set it off — Changbin began retching, shooting off his desk chair.

 

Sadly he didn’t really make it to the bathroom.

  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  


**Days later**

 

One last look in the mirror and Changbin was out of the door.

 

It was saturday evening. Changbin hadn’t dressed too formally for the occasion, yet tried to pick something that made him look less sloppy unlike his usual clothes for work. He had taken care of his hair, the raven mop that usually covered his whole forehead casually slicked back. He hadn’t seen his forehead in so long, he almost forgot how he looked like with it. But it was good enough. Chan would understand that he was putting in effort. He’d even chosen his clear-framed glasses to complete the look — he thought it made him look more . . . relaxed. And hide the fact that his heart was racing in his chest.

 

Changbin wasn’t feeling too confident. He tried not to bring his hopes up, but didn’t want to expect nothing at all, either. After all, he’d put so much work into this that she should finally be able to see the fruits of his labor. It would no doubt influence the way he was acting around Chan.

 

Speaking of which, how _would_ he act around him? Changbin kept his hands steady on the steering wheel as he thought. Romantic? Funny? Charming? Mysterious? Changbin didn’t know. Straight-up romantic could be a bit too much. It was the first date after all. Hints of it should be there, maybe, but not exclusively. Something casual, mixed with funny and charming together. Changbin wanted to speak and act in such a way that made Chan feel relaxed around him, so that he would open up to him. But a hint of mystery wasn’t all that bad either . . . could pique Chan’s interest and hold onto it tightly.

 

“Remember, don’t talk about any of Chan’s hobbies or favourite shows until he brings them up,” Changbin whispered to himself, a reminder that he was yet to burn into his brain. When he had rehearsed what he wanted to say to Chan, he automatically made really specific references to shows Chan liked. That could be too obvious. Chan wasn’t allowed to find out what he had been up to under any circumstances.

 

The cat café was new but already popular. Upon its opening, customers flooded the place. Customers of all ages, coming here for all possible reasons. Chan and Changbin both lived about an hour from Seoul, but their city didn’t offer any exciting places for a date and so this cat café was unmatched. It wasn’t a formal restaurant, and that’s why Changbin hadn’t picked clothing of the like. He wasn’t too keen on getting cat hair on it, either. In reality Changbin actually despised cats (and pets in general). He just knew Chan liked them very much, not enough to get one of his own, but would still love to cuddle up with a cat on a rainy day. Yeah, he hated cats.  But Changbin was doing this for Chan after all.

 

He parked his car and went through everything he wanted to say to Chan in the course of the evening again. The focus was on complimenting Chan whenever he could. Not randomly, never randomly. But when Chan mentioned something about himself that he was neutral about, he would find a way to praise him for it. For example: If Chan said work had been stressful for him recently, Changbin would say something like ‘But you’re a role model for a reason. You work so hard, you’d deserve a medal!’

 

He cringed. He wouldn’t say that.

 

Changbin walked onto the street and crossed the plaza. Further into the heart of the city, the cat café stood between a beautician and a small boutique. He used the meadow as a shortcut instead of walking around on the pavement, the whole place filled with people. Children were still running around and some angry parents chased after them. It wasn’t too late yet. Not nearly as late as it was when Chan left his apartment to go wherever. Changbin was still to find out where he had gone to.

 

Lost in thought, Changbin had been cutting his way through the crowd into the wrong direction. He could easily just keep walking with the crowd — the meadow was circled in by a paved way with multiple exits heading into the city — yet Changbin chose to walk against the flow.

 

There weren’t many people behind him; they had already passed him when he stopped in front of the souvenir shop he found himself in front of. But he walked straight into someone when he did.

 

Changbin didn’t mind it and neither did the person he ran into. He turned around and walked right past them, not seeing their face.

 

The person stood still and watched after Changbin.

  
  


Chan was already there. He had not ordered anything yet. Instead, Chan was playing with a grey cat that curled up in his lap. Changbin had suggested this place because he did know Chan liked cats, however, he himself didn’t understand the whole . . . practical execution of this idea. Didn’t they lose hair? Wouldn’t it be swirling in everyone’s beverages? He tried not to think about it. Changbin thought it was gross, and definitely not a hygienic idea, but the things he did for Chan . . . it certainly wasn’t the craziest thing yet.

 

He joined him and took a seat across from him. Chan looked up from the cat he was petting and Changbin cringed at the grey hair on the table. The cat was carefully groomed, like every other cat here, and Changbin was sure everything was regularly (hopefully daily) vacuumed. Yet he couldn’t stop the hair on his arms from standing up.

 

“I’m sorry, did you wait for long?” Changbin asked, taking off his jacket.

 

“I came early on purpose. Wanted to play with the cats before you got here, so that I could give you all my attention,” Chan smiled and patted the cat’s head in goodbye, then took it off the table and placed it on the floor. Almost immediately, the cat raced off into the back of the room. Sounds of other people chatting or cooing at the cats filled the room. Changbin smiled. Chan was in a good mood.

 

And he looked absolutely incredible.

 

Changbin’s breath hitched at the thought that Chan had very obviously dolled up for him. His hair parted neatly in the middle, falling into his face but avoided his eyes in a slight curl. A few buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing white collarbones and two silver necklaces, one of which with a little charm. His sleeves were rolled up and — oh.

 

“Those are cute bracelets,” Changbin said as he sat in front of him. “You rarely wear bright colors.”

 

Chan’s hand slid up to play with the rubber bracelets and the tiny charms attached to it, chuckling a little. “Yeah, my niece and nephew gifted me these. They’re only eight and five years old, and my sister would kill me if I made them upset — not that I’d ever want to. So I promised to never take them off . . . sorry if it’s a little inappropriate.

 

Changbin propped his chin up on his fist. “Don’t worry about it, it’s really cute.”

 

He’d already known that. When he went to Chan’s place, he saw that his niece’s birthday was noted in his calendar. Changbin thought it wouldn’t hurt to see how Chan’s family looked like, so he’d followed him a little bit. His own sister had gotten into an accident a week prior to that, so Changbin had been called to pick it up. Shortly after visiting her in the hospital, he’d taken the chance and her car to follow Chan without being noticed.

 

They ordered their drinks and the conversation kicked off properly. It was important to Chan to talk about political matters and Changbin saw relief in his face when Changbin was able to share his views with good arguments — so far so good. They slowly eased into each other, and Chan grew more excited talking about a new video game coming out. Changbin took the chance to call him cute when Chan apologized for getting carried away and nerding, and his heart started thumping violently in his chest when he saw Chan getting flustered.

 

It was physical pain in his chest, but it was the type that Changbin gladly experienced. The ecstatic shock he felt whenever his eyes laid upon Chan was indescribable, a wave of attraction sending signals not only to his chest.

 

“I actually don’t know how to feel about that.” They started talking about work a little, not to the extent it would get stressful, but for some reason they’d picked up the topic of Chan being the temporary boss. “It’s a huge responsibility.”

 

“I’m sure you’ll deal with it,” Changbin leaned forward, swirling his spoon in the latte macchiato. “Everyone’s kind of jealous of you at work. You’re perfect at everything, no wonder you’re confronted with this. But I’m almost a hundred percent sure you’ll do just fine.”

 

Chan grinned and Changbin’s stomach flipped. “Almost . . . ?”

 

Changbin laughed. “See? Confidence is key.” That was the only thing that got him through life. Everything he did, everything he said — he had to follow this. It was just too simple and effective all the same.

 

Yet Changbin felt like he had slipped something dangerous, and bit his tongue in response. It was an effective piece of advice, but Changbin didn’t use it for regular hobbies. He wished he could take it back, even though Chan obviously didn’t seem to think something bad of it.

 

Rather, he folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. Changbin liked this intimacy. When they’d be going home later — whether his or Chan’s place he was yet to figure out — he’d love that comfort in the bedroom, too. “But we’ve been talking only about me so far. How about you? What do you like?”

 

Heat shot into Changbin’s head. He hadn’t been prepared for this question at all. Chan consumed all of his time, he was at the center of Changbin’s life — what did he like? _Really?_ Chan of course. But he couldn’t say that. And all the media he consumed were indirect recommendations of Chan’s as well. What was he supposed to say?

 

“I was going to say something cheesy but I’m not gonna do it,” Changbin slipped and Chan laughed.

 

“Seriously? Come on, that’s so lame.” Chan smiled at him and Changbin could swear his cheeks were dusted light pink. Chan wasn’t one to get flustered easily, that’s for sure, but tonight was a little bit different and absolutely in Changbin’s favour.

 

“Do you play video games?” _Thank you. Fucking thank you, Chan._

 

“Yeah, I don’t play as often as I’d like to anymore but I do and I also keep up with the community.” An easy enough half-truth that saved Changbin from this critical situation, but he was still feeling a little nauseous from the danger.

 

And as they kept talking, this nausea only got worse. Even though he could have totally coincidentally liked the same things Chan consumed, he couldn’t bring himself to chat about them and lay out his knowledge like he had initially planned to do. Any thought swirling in his brain struck him as way too suspicious, even though realistically, something like this was the last thing Chan would ever think of on a date with a co-worker who seemed to truly, sincerely like him.

 

His thighs started sweating and he felt droplets of sweat in his neck, too. What was wrong with him? What was happening? Thankfully Chan was so calming to look at and his voice was of a soothing tone and volume. It kept him anchored to the ground.

 

But that didn’t matter.

 

There was something wrong. If Changbin hadn’t already been scared by the messages he’d received, now he was. Adding up to his shaken up presence, his phone started vibrating violently in his chest pocket. It reminded him of the day he was deleting photos. All those pictures crawled back into his mind, and the memory of the smell of vomit overpowered every pleasant smell in the café. Changbin wanted to smash his phone in his pocket.

 

And it just kept vibrating. _Please stop,_ Changbin thought, but the vibration was so powerful and thankfully Chan was talking because if he wasn’t he would have heard it. What kinds of messages was he getting? Photos?

 

 _Please, no photos from Chan._ Because if the paranoia that was currently taking over wasn’t bad enough, revealing his photos of Chan while on a date with him was absolutely the last thing he needed.

 

“Is everything alright, Changbin?” Chan inclined his head to the right. Changbin had completely forgotten about their surroundings; everything had molten away as he focused on keeping up the conversation without freaking out completely white receiving the messages. He pushed his glasses up and took a deep breath through his nose.

 

“Chan, I’m gonna go use the restroom real quick,” Changbin tried to raise his voice over the sound of his heart beating loudly in his ears. This needed to stop. He needed to talk to Woojin.

 

“Of course, go ahead.”

 

He nodded and smiled, wincing when Chan returned his smile and walked off. Changbin suppressed the desire to kick the cat that was in his path and made his way through the tables.

 

People’s heads turned. Looking at him, eyes piercing through his skin like violently swung daggers. Before Changbin took the turn to the corridor in which the bathroom was located, he stole one more glance at Chan and the crowd. Everyone was looking, everyone, except for Chan.

 

He blinked, the trail of sweat running down his neck burning. Rather, no one was looking, not even Chan. Still he felt exposed. In an odd way.

 

Deciding against lingering in that moment for too long, Changbin’s legs practically moved by themselves and carried him to the restroom. A little boy crossed his path, perhaps an elementary kid and looked up at him. Their eyes locked and stayed that way until they had passed each other.

 

Changbin assumed the boy’s raised eyebrows and in speed increasing steps were provoked by Changbin’s awkward and probably suspicious looking stand. Arms nervously rubbed together, eyes darting across the floor as he tried to find the bathroom. He didn’t have to _find_ it. There was a sign.

 

He entered the men’s restroom and was utterly grateful to find nobody there. To be sure, he walked along the bathroom stalls and checked if everything was truly unlocked. Luckily, he was right. He took it as a chance to run to the sink and splash his face with water repeatedly once he’d taken off his glasses and carefully tucked them away.

 

The cold water seemed to pull Changbin out of something equaling a trance. Once Chan started talking about his interests in a teaching manner, to make Changbin understand them, his mind had blanked out, already having taken a hit when Chan asked about _his_ favourite things. It would have been odd to say that he knew all about them. Each and every one of them. It would have been strange if, when Chan spoke about his acquaintances, he would have said that he knew all of them.

 

Chan would find him scary. Chan wouldn’t want to go out with him anymore.

 

And although he ended up pretending that he didn’t know, something nagged at him. Something bothered Changbin that he couldn’t put his finger on.

 

Water ran over his hand and Changbin dragged it through his hair, messing up the slicked back style. His hair fell into his face, into his eyes, and when Changbin looked into the mirror, he found somebody he recognized.

 

His reflection stared back at him like it should. Changbin recognized himself, yet he was different. In the mirror, Changbin found somebody. It was him, but altered. He looked exactly the same, it was a reflection after all, but Changbin couldn’t help but feel that it was different than usual.

 

“Is everything alright? You look unwell,” Changbin heard and jumped because there was no one behind him in the reflection. It turned out to be a man who stood beside him, having just entered the restroom. He spoke with a dialect, one Changbin didn’t recognize, but it was clear that he didn’t have a foreign accent. Changbin had spent his childhood abroad, he wasn’t all too good with distinguishing Korean dialects.

 

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” Changbin turned to meet his gaze and bow, and the man smiled at him and returned it. Then he disappeared into one of the bathroom stalls and Changbin snapped out of it.

 

He turned to look into the mirror again. Seeing his hands clenching around the rim of the sink, messy wet hair hanging into his eyes . . . he definitely understood why the man felt the need to ask. Finally, he gathered all his courage to take the vibrating phone out of his chest pocket and block the new number again. This time he covered the screen with one hand while handling the chat setting with the other. Thankfully they were located in a bar on top of the screen, so Changbin didn’t have to look at what he was getting. He didn’t even want to begin imagining what it could be, but he truly, sincerely hoped that it wasn’t Chan.

 

Changbin regulated his breathing. Three other men entered the bathroom together, chatting loudly and that’s when Changbin decided to get his shit together.

 

He carefully combed back his hair with his hands as best as he could and re-adjusted his jacket. Then he decided that actually using the bathroom would be a good idea as well.

 

Changbin entered the only free stall left and found the time and energy to be bothered by the fact that the three men didn’t stop chatting while they did what they had to do. Changbin didn’t stand, he sat.

 

He needed to put his his head into his hands and think. _Think._ Now that he’d gotten rid of the messages — though, who knew for how long that would last — he was trying to think of what had made him so uneasy before they’d started coming in. He wasn’t going to think about this further because he didn’t want to return to Chan reeking of vomit.

 

But he had to. He had to find a way. He had to find a way to make this top. If he went to the police and reported the harassment, all of this could stop.

 

Wait. He couldn’t do that.

 

They’d need access to his devices and servers and he kept copies from his pictures of Chan everywhere. He couldn’t delete them. Every single one was a masterpiece, every single one had a story, and if Changbin deleted any of them he would be deleting a part of himself. If he went to the police about this problem, he’d be done for as well.

 

Changbin bit down on his hand in frustration. If he’d been alone he would have shouted. Why was he being cornered like this? Who was doing this to him? He was short of breath thinking about being harassed like this for the rest of his life. He didn’t want any of this, he wanted it to _stop._ He was being pinned against a wall and there was nothing he could do about it. Changbin would try and get a new phone number, but if this person had found out his current one they’d do it again a second time. Whatever he came up with didn’t seem to be a good solution.

 

But what bothered him the most and what made him try to keep himself from kicking the stall door was that he couldn’t get help. The only one he could go to was Woojin, but Woojin wouldn’t be able to make it stop. He wasn’t sure what Woojin could even do, but he needed his words. He needed his advice. If he couldn’t get any help without being caught himself he should at least be able to get his.

 

Fuck. Why was this so complicated? Why did nothing work out the way he wanted it to?

  
  


Multiple flushings, doors flying open, Changbin was also done by now. Still he was the only one left in the restroom when he left the stall. Changbin took care of his zipper and tucked his shirt into his pants. Then he noticed a photograph taped to the mirror.

 

The blood froze in Changbin’s veins.

 

When he went to approach it and rip it off the glass it simply disappeared in his hands. “Now I’m seeing things. I’m going crazy. What the fuck.” Changbin rubbed his eyes and left.

 

There was no paper in his hands when he tried to rip it off, but there was still a photo on the mirror when he left the bathroom.

 

The rest of the evening went like Changbin had wanted it to. Calm, filled with Chan’s smiles. They naturally progressed from one topic to the other and Changbin relaxed again, though an odd feeling still crept in the pit of his stomach. He was able to relax a little bit now that the spamming had stopped and he had half a pitiful solution in his mind.

 

He’d told himself he wouldn’t think about the pictures, so instead, whenever there was a tiny space to think about something other than Chan, he thought about approaching Woojin with this.

 

He later on did, and after the date Changbin dropped by their work place to interrupt Woojin's shift. He told him everything and gave Woojin his phone to take care of it upon his request. Woojin wanted to see what exactly he was getting. He wasn't fond of the images either, but maybe within them he could find a reason why this was happening to Changbin. It wasn't like he could prevent it, and he himself could try blocking all the numbers, but at the end of the day things would continue like they always had with the sole difference that Changbin didn't have to deal with it. He was both grateful and nervous when it came to this move.

 

After all, he wanted to focus on the possible next date with Chan. He didn't want to think about all of this all the time, he wanted to be mentally ready and unoccupied when the time came, but no matter how much Changbin tried, it didn't work anyway.

  
  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  
  
  


“Oh boy,” Younghyun entered the office and interrupted Changbin and Woojin at first. Well, Changbin wasn’t really working anyway. All that was on his mind was the call he would be getting from Chan soon. Although Chan was his boss now, nothing changed. Probably because it was only temporarily, yet Changbin was still glad about it.

 

But Younghyun making such an entrance probably didn’t mean anything good. And he was right.

 

“Woojin and Changbin, annoying the boss,” Younghyun stood in the door and leaned against the frame. Two women were standing outside by the windows and watched the three through them. “What were you thinking?”

 

“What are you talking about?” Woojin asked and pushed his swivel chair away from the desk.

 

“Really? That’s hilarious, Woojin,” Younghyun chuckled and pointed out the door with his thumb. “If you really don’t know what I’m saying, go see for yourself. Outside. Bang Chan’s car.”

 

Changbin and Woojin looked at each other and rose to their feet. He was unsure. What could have happened? Of course Younghyun was the one to deliver whatever kind of news that was supposed to be. It was nerve-wracking, really, he would have preferred for Chan to come himself.

 

But they still did as told, and soon they were walking past colleagues with funny expressions and downstairs.

 

Outside, a few colleagues had gathered around Chan’s car. They stared leaning in to each other and whispering when Changbin and Woojin joined them.

 

“What’s going on? Kang Younghyun called us outside,” Woojin said and waited for Chan’s response.

 

The new boss was looking . . . confused. His eyes kept wandering between Woojin and Changbin and Changbin couldn’t interpret his expression properly. He didn’t have to say anything because the matter was obvious.

 

There were pictures plastered all over Chan’s car, every single one of them depicting Changbin together with Woojin. “Who did this?” Chan asked, voice weird. Some chuckles sounded from the present colleagues.

 

Changbin stepped closer to the car and ripped a picture off. It showed Woojin sprawled out on his couch while Changbin sat at the table. It was a recent image. All the other pictures were similar, just Changbin and Woojin spending time together, hanging out, doing nothing special. And if that wasn’t weird already, Changbin then noticed what it was that made Chan so uncomfortable.

 

The photos on the hood of the car were crossed out with a red marker, the photos themselves printed in black and white. Depicted were Changbin and Chan on their date in the cat café, simply enjoying some time together. Essentially the same as the pictures of Changbin with his friend, just with different intentions behind it. Whoever did this— Changbin had an idea, who— knew that.

 

“What the fuck,” Woojin voiced Changbin’s exact emotions. He, too, was staring at multiple pictures in his hands.

 

“So you’ve never seen these before?” Chan’s piercing gaze was attached to Woojin’s face.

 

“No, of course not. I—I wouldn’t do this! Where did they even get the pictures from?”

 

Changbin and Woojin both knew.

 

Chan sighed. He did look perturbed and his brows were tightly pulled together. “Help me get rid of this.”

 

Woojin already got to work, but Changbin still stared at the crossed out pictures. Someone had followed him on his date with Chan and taken pictures. Someone had taken pictures of Woojin and him in his own house, but they were taken from a perspective that just called out to Changbin showing it was from the windows. He could exactly picture which ones.

 

His fingers lingered on the picture of him and Chan laughing and he removed it from the hood. The next one as well, and the next one, and put them on top of each other. Then, Changbin ripped them into half. He did the same with the other pictures. Chan was just staring at him, but Changbin didn’t take notice of that. When Woojin did, he started doing the same thing, making it seem more . . . normal. Eventually, Chan started doing it too. They didn’t speak much more.

 

“Did you . . . notice anybody?” Chan asked quietly. Changbin looked up at him. There was a hint of fear in Chan's expression.

 

“No, no I didn’t. Everything seemed pretty normal. I was just having a fun time with you, I didn’t see anyone.” Changbin responded, and that was about it. _Everything seemed pretty normal_ wasn't the truth, but Changbin didn't care. Chan nodded and continued.

 

Eventually, he excused himself and went back inside earlier than the other two. Nobody said anything. The two finished taking off the photos within five minutes, the both of them staring at each picture for a little while. When they were done, they followed.

 

They spent the rest of their shift thinking and trying to ignore annoying comments from Younghyun. Some of them were getting inappropriate. But Changbin didn’t care. There was much to think about, because he had been planning something. Changbin had been thrown off by this occurrence, because he actually had plans to go invite himself over to Chan's again tonight . . .

 

He knew Chan wouldn't be home. Every now and then, he would be sleeping at a friend's place, and tonight was one of those nights. Usually Changbin knew all of his friends' names, but he hadn't been bothered lately. For some reason new people kept popping out of nowhere. But what mattered was that towards the end of their date, Chan had casually told him about these plans, and Changbin figured he could use it as a perfect opportunity to see if there was something else he could do to make Chan fall for him.

 

He pulled his hood deep into his face again, but when he got to Chan's door he removed it. This would take a little bit strength, so with the hood on he might have looked a little bit suspicious to anyone who could have watched. He used lockpicks and a credit card skillfully, something he had practiced in his own house over and over again until he'd gotten it right. It had worked the first time Changbin had been to Chan's place, and this second time around it did again.

 

_Too easy_

 

The first thing Changbin noticed that Chan had rearranged his furniture. Especially his own room looked completely different, but he had never noticed that when he watched him for obvious reasons. Now that there was nothing else to look at and pay attention to, he realized that the whole place looked completely different. There was a laundry basket next to Chan's bed and normally he wouldn't have cared but he was pretty sure Chan didn't need a bra.

 

He really wanted to ignore it, but that was something new. Changbin kneeled next to it and picked it up with the very tips of his fingernails. He hated touching people's clothes, especially underwear like this now, so he quickly tossed it aside. Below the bra was a blouse and jeans way too slim to fit Chan's fit frame. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows as he continued to dig through what he found, practically using his fingernails. It was so, so gross. But this was something that he had to do.

 

"So you're still not over her?" Changbin murmured, throwing everything back together into the basket. "I'm offended, Chan. You're seeing me now."

 

But Chan didn't have to discard these things. Changbin was going to be nice and do it for him. If he truly cared about Changbin, he wouldn't even notice it was gone. And if he did, he wouldn't care. That was for sure. Changbin put the basket on the bed so he wouldn't forget to take it with him later. Changbin wasn't even going to throw this away. He was going to burn it, piece by piece. In his garden. And then throw all of it into a burning pile and extinguish it with feet, smashing the remains to ashes. That sounded like a flawless plan.

 

Changbin hummed. He was looking forward to doing that.

 

He went to Chan's desk and went through the drawers. One by one, he made sure to search more with his eyes than his fingers, otherwise he would be making too much of a mess and Chan would notice. He couldn't afford him thinking someone wanted to steal something other than a basket of clothes. That just make things unnecessarily complicated. Changbin didn't find anything suspicious until he got to the last drawer, where he found prints of photos of Chan and his ex girlfriend.

 

"Now, that's getting annoying now, really." Changbin took them and hid them in his pocket. Something else to get rid of. He'd deleted all the photos he'd had of those two together. It looked like there was more of that to take care of. He really couldn't understand Chan. Was he hoping they'd get back together? That was hopeless. And very rude. He was seeing Changbin now. And meeting someone else at the same time simply wasn't something he should do. Then he would be no better than his ex. And a kind soul like Chan should never want that.

 

He went through Chanbin's shelves, looking for new reads, looking for new DVDs. But Chan hadn't gotten any additions to his collections recently. A look at the clock told Changbin that it was getting late and soon he'd have to go, but not before he checked out the living room as well. For him it had been most important to check out Chan's room first, and after that, if he still had time, he would check the rest of the apartment for anything new or suspicious. He froze in the door, debating whether or not to take the basket with him now or go with free hands and come back for it later. Deciding on the former option, Changbin turned on his heel, and oddly, he now spotted something under Chan's bed.

 

Of course it had been there all the time, but Changbin hadn't paid attention. He kneeled down again, reaching out for the tiny gift box. It was a clean shade of black, not the dusty-looking one, and a lighter black silk ribbon kept it shut. Why was it not on the desk? Or in the drawers? Why was it under his bed?

 

Changbin removed the ribbon and took a look at what was inside. There was a card and expensive parfume. A gift to him?

 

He unfolded the card and quickly skimmed the inside. Then he groaned and crumpled it up. _I want you back, blah blah,_ Changbin thought, stuffing the paper into his pocket. He mumbled, "Chan, I knew you're a little idiot sometimes in your private life, but you're _my_ idiot. Why do you want her back? She fucked someone else, for god's sake."

 

He placed the box on top of the clothes. He'd take it with him. Maybe Chan was unsure about this decision and wanted to give Changbin a legitimate, fair chance, so that was why he'd kept it under the bed instead of somewhere he could see it. But that didn't matter to Changbin anyway. He wanted to go look around and see if Chan had more things from or for his ex, but then something happened that made Changbin's heart stop beating.

 

Keys.

 

There was no time for how and why, he could wonder about why Chan wasn't at his friend's place later, all that mattered now was that he got out of there as quickly as he could.

 

Lucky for him he wasn't too bad of a climber (except that one time he'd accidentally almost crushed his balls) and there were trees close enough to Chan's bedroom window. He had to make a jump though, something he would normally hesitate doing, but now he didn't have a choice. It was either risk getting hurt or be caught in Chan's home by Chan himself and then it was over. He absolutely couldn't allow that to happen.

 

He pulled the window open quickly and placed the basket on the narrow space beyond the windowsill. He climbed out of it, quickly checking if anyone was outside, and pulled his hood over his head just in case. He was wearing a mask anyway, so everything else would be easier. He turned off the light with the switch next to the window, pulled it shut and almost lost his balance. His heart skipped a beat. He didn't feel like breaking his neck tonight, or anytime soon.

 

He grabbed the laundry basket and his momentum made the box slip off. He tried to catch it but only got the box and the perfume fell out and broke on the floor. Fuck this, Changbin thought and made the final jump. He lingered a bit in the crown, rubbing his face. A few branches had smacked him and his eyes were tearing up from being poked. Except for the perfume he still had everything. No doubt Chan would have noticed that someone had been in his house, after all his things were missing, but now he'd know that this person wasn't entirely graceful about it.

 

It was indeed Chan who came into his room a few moments later, and for some reason Changbin couldn't believe it. You said you wold be at your friend's place. Why are you not there?

 

Changbin wanted to stay a little bit longer, but when Chan got closer to the window he realized it was time to go. He couldn't afford other people seeing him either.

 

What could have been casual and fun had turned out to be extremely stressful, and at least Changbin got to relieve a little bit of that stress by burning the clothes like he said he would. One by one. In his garden, with multiple lighters. He took his sweet times, sitting on the steps leading to the back door of his house. One by one. Of course he started with the bra. That was what bothered him the most. He didn't even know how Chan got to keep all of these things. Why hadn't she taken them with her? It didn't make a whole lot of sense to Changbin. But it didn't matter now, because he was taking care of what bothered him and he stomped out the flames, which turned out to be a lot of fun.

 

Then it was the photographs' turn. He burned them too.

 

One by one.

  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  


Changbin parked his car and fumbled with the keys as he stepped to the door. He picked out the key for the mailbox, checking it like he always did. He took out the newspaper and something fell to the floor.

 

He bent down to pick it up, still trying to put together the newspaper as the individual pages were flying around. He searched the ground and once he had settled on just crumpling the newspaper into a ball— he wouldn’t be reading it anyways—he realized that it was his phone.

 

He picked it up and examined the display for cracks. Three large ones tore through the whole screen, but he was still able to use it. Though, what was it doing here? Woojin was taking care of it. He'd given it to him only two weeks ago. As far as he knew there'd been no progress, the same thing happening over and over again, as they had predicted. But then again maybe there _had_ been progress, there had to have been, otherwise his phone wouldn't have been there.

 

Changbin figured the messages had stopped and Woojin wasn’t able to contact him after his visit at Chan’s place so he brought it. Strange, since he could simply give it to him at work the next day. Or he could have stopped by work to give it to him if he wanted to do so that badly. Woojin always kept the phone in the drawers at work, but it had to be locked and Changbin obviously didn't have the keys to his material. It might have been Woojin's day off, but if he _really_ wanted to give it to him, he would have found a way to do it in person.

 

Unlocking the door and entering, Changbin accessed his phone with his regular password. Everything was the same. He threw the newspaper away and jumped onto the couch, opening his chats so he could text Woojin thanks.

 

 _Finally it stopped,_ Changbin thought, relieved.

 

Obviously it couldn’t be that simple.

 

There was only one chatroom. Changbin had chatrooms with his parents, Woojin, Chan, other friends, internet friends, but here, everything was gone except for one. It was titled ‘Changbin’.

 

Frowning, Changbin tapped to open it.

 

There was a huge amount of messages, the small, red exclamation mark below every single one of them showing that they were all unsent.

 

_Changbin_

 

_Pretty things_

 

_Nothing is as pretty as what you wore that night around Chan’s house_

 

_Saw you staring up to his window, did you like what you saw?  
_

 

_Was he changing when you did? He probably was, wasn’t he? I get you_

 

_I should do that too sometime_

 

_How did Chan look?_

 

_Why don’t you pay attention to me_

 

_Fuck Woojin_

 

_Who is he to monitor your life?_

 

_This is all just between you and me_

 

_Get him out of your mind him and Woojin and everyone else_

 

_Your eyes should be on me_

 

_Chan is boring what makes him special and more interesting than me_

 

_Changb_

 

_I love you_

  
  


The blood froze in Changbin’s veins. As soon as he had scrolled through the messages, he started looking around his room for someone hiding. He looked at the windows. Changbin rose to his feet and ran to the door, locking it multiple times. Checked everything.

 

He took another look at the messages. It was the ‘I love you’ that he couldn’t get out of his mind. It was a confession, put into a single text. Innocent enough to tear it out of context and accept it as it was. Changbin wished they had ended a fucked up message about their needs with this. ‘I love you’ alone made them sound too innocent.

 

For god’s sake, they saw him stalking Chan. That was what got him into all this in the first place.

 

Even though this should have been enough for Changbin to contact Woojin and get the hell out of his house, it wasn’t.

 

He sat on the couch again, this time with completely tensed up body, and went into the camera roll.

 

Changbin wasn’t quite sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this.

 

Those pictures. They had sent him bloody pictures before, but this? It was gruesome. Terrifying.

 

One of them was a picture of an arm basically completely sliced up. Blood welled out of and covered long slits drawn diagonally through the arm. It was completely covered in red, the blood separating itself from the flesh as it dripped onto the ground in strings. Changbin’s dizziness started kicking in. He could see himself not making it to the bathroom again.

 

He hated blood. He hated blood. He hated blood. He hated blood. He hated blood, guts, everything disgusting. And yet, contradicting his terror and disgust, there was something about it that didn’t allow him to look away. He felt awful, absolutely fucking awful, and yet this time, now that he had already started, he just couldn’t look away.

 

And so he swiped. This picture was a woman, eyes cold and glazed over— dead. A hand pressed the sharp blade of a knife into her throat, but it didn’t bleed excessively. Only slightly. She was _long_ dead. Her hair was cut oddly and her cheeks were torn open. The dark red looked like it was going to go mouldy, and her lips were completely sliced up. Vertical stripes. Cutting horizontal lines through them would result in edible-looking little cubes.

 

The camera roll was full of that, amidst them some sexual videos of one person alone, presumably the killer and his stalker. Changbin wanted to throw up. He seriously wanted to rush into the bathroom and empty his stomach into the bowl. But if he did, he would be facing away from the door. And maybe then someone would come and push his head deep into the water, a beautiful mixture with vomit, and he would either die of being choked by being pressed against the rim of the bowl or drowning in his own barf. Humiliating.

 

Changbin found a few photographs of tied up people on silver stools. Some of them were naked, others weren’t, but what was peculiar about these pictures was that all of them sat in a pool of blood, yet not a single one of them looked injured in a way that could draw blood yet. They probably sat in someone else’s. Behind them was a wall covered in snapshots of themselves. They were his stalking victims.

 

He scrolled all the way up, past a flood of blood and reached the very first picture.

 

It was another one of those. The silver stool, the puddle of blood, but there was no one on the chair. Hundreds of pictures of Changbin had been pinned to the wall in the back. A chill ran down his spine, around his waist and into his pants, stirring something.

 

 _Clearly, I have lost it,_ Changbin thought and locked the phone. He couldn’t understand this horror reaching his body in a different way. That was wrong. That was just wrong.

 

Made him look away, but not for long. He unlocked the phone again and swiped left. It was a clearer picture of the wall. There were pictures of Changbin with Woojin, getting into his house, on his date with Chan . . . even there. Everywhere.

 

Again chills, and again, it reached places Changbin didn’t want it to. _I’m losing my mind,_ Changbin thought feeling the bulge of his pants grow. He left the photo folder of the camera roll and discovered that there were 27 videos. As much as he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the photos, intrigue overpowering the multiple waves of nausea, he simply didn’t dare to look what the videos bore.

 

It was one thing seeing the outcome, but seeing the process was a whole different thing. And Changbin couldn’t look. This time, he couldn’t. Violence and blood grossed him out. He was sure of that.

 

Changbin closed the app and went into the notes. There were no additional apps on the phone, aside from the standard Apple ones. There were three notes, all of which had similar content as the text messages sent to him. He didn’t bother reading through them, as it was all predictable after reading the first lines. When he tapped the third note, it only contained one sentence.

 

_You understand me. I have all of your pictures._

 

It took him a second to realize what it meant. Yes, Changbin did understand them. Even though the greatest amount of the pictures was pure horror, the ones that were inside of the photographs and pinned to the wall brought him pleasure. He was physically able to feel it. However, he couldn’t help but bite down on his lip and fear. A similar fate was awaiting him, if he wasn’t cautious. He was bound to be the next victim.

 

Changbin looked around the living room again. Scanned the windows for faces observing him. But there was nothing. His house was locked and the code was in-tact. Woojin was a call away. If something were to happen, he could just call Woojin. His friend was more cautious than he was, anyway, and if he got into a situation where he had to defend himself and Woojin was on the phone, he would know what to do.

 

For now, Changbin had to try to avoid the police for as long as he could. If whoever was after him did have all the footage he had of Chan and they managed to hide so well so far . . . it didn’t look good for Changbin.

 

He turned off the phone and went upstairs to take a shower, ignoring his erection and instead trying to figure out what it meant. That night, Changbin went to bed without dinner or contacting Woojin about the situation.

  
  
  
  
  


A few hours later and Changbin woke after a nightmare. In this nightmare, he had been chased through a dark alley. Eventually he got to an opening in the wall, not a door, but quite literally a hole. He slipped through it in attempts to hide from who or what was following him, but he no matter how often he looked over his shoulder, he was unable to spot anyone. In his dream, he was a third party. He didn’t live being chased, but watched himself running.

 

When he woke up he only remembered little, but being stabbed was part of that. He had run and run and run, and out of nowhere a knife came flying in his direction and ultimately ended up stabbing him in the throat. It hurt, he choked, but he didn’t wake up yet.

 

He didn’t know what it meant. It was just a dream after all. Even if something happened, he had made it through the night. Why wouldn’t he have?

 

But it hadn’t been his ‘death’ in the dream that woke him up. The feeling of being watched hovering over him in his sleep woke him and Changbin, now awake, still couldn’t shake it off. He had tried to ignore it. He had tried to just go to bed and forget about it until it was time to see Woojin. But there was something about feeling watched in his sleep that made Changbin flip. It was probably the time of day and the darkness.

 

Changbin rose and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. Then the one on the ceiling, illuminating the whole room. Nobody was there, obviously, but tonight, Changbin was paranoid. He had all reason to be. Changbin slipped out of bed and carefully approached the door.

 

He couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was in his house. After whoever it was that was terrorizing him actually went to his place and threw that phone into the mailbox . . . Changbin.

 

Head shooting around, Changbin turned on the lights in the corridors. Nothing as far as the eye could see. Carefully tiptoeing down the corridor, Changbin felt forced to pick up the pace. Every few seconds he looked over his shoulder to ensure that nobody was creeping up behind him.

 

His face felt hot, his stomach flipping in his torso. He was convinced his heart was trying to drill its way to the outside. Changbin walked along the walls for stability and cursed himself for moving into a house with so many rooms. Before he would go around to check if he was truly safe, he needed a weapon.

 

Changbin basically flew down the stairs so he wouldn’t be stuck on them if somebody approached him from behind or the front. His sweaty hair hung in strands, falling into his eyes. He glanced around the staircase and was relieved to see nobody. Passing the living room, Changbin didn’t bother to look inside. He would be defenseless against everything. But he did make sure to flip every light switch he passed, making sure that his house was well lit at four AM in the morning.

 

There he was, the kitchen, and the most dangerous place in the house. Kitchen knives were easy weapons. And so, Changbin carefully glimpsed into the room before going inside. Except for when he went downstairs, Changbin made sure to be dead quiet. He hoped the stairs hadn’t completely given him away.

 

Fortunately, there was no one in the kitchen. Changbin was starting to believe that he was truly just being paranoid. Still he ran towards the collection of cooking knives and hid all of them well, except for one. They shouldn’t be easily accessible if anyone found their way to his kitchen. The one, big one he picked out for himself was perfect.

 

He held it in both hands, in front of and away from his body as he continued to search the house. Of course never forgetting to turn on the lights.

 

The last thing Changbin needed in this situation was intrusive thoughts. Like everybody else, Changbin had them frequently and they were unavoidable. Thoughts of flinging himself out of the window, jumping in front of a car, killing a dog or slicing an annoying co-worker’s throat. All things he would never do. Those about Chan especially bothered him, and one time a particularly nasty one left him in silent tears at the workplace. They bothered him, they always did, but now that he was looking for someone that could maybe be hiding in his house with the goal to kill him, it bothered him the most.

 

Images of someone jumping around the corner, attacking him with the most bizarre things as weapons, hacking him into tiny little pieces . . . and many more things Changbin didn’t even want to think about further. He hated it. Perhaps they were the result of a lack of concentration. He needed to focus.

 

Changbin held his breath.

 

He could have sworn he heard a beeping sound. The knife in his hands trembled— no, it wasn’t the knife moving by itself. It was Changbin’s whole body shaking. After reassuring himself that nobody was somewhere in front of him, he swiveled around as abruptly as he could to take whoever it was behind him by surprise. His shirt lifted with the movement, exposing his pale skin. There was nobody.

 

Yet the beeping remained. Changbin held the knife higher, dangerously close to his own throat, but it was pointed at the front. If someone managed to twist it out of his hands and push it towards him, his throat was gone. Another intrusive thought depicted Changbin choking on his own blood as the slit in his throat kept pushing out waves of blood, staining his clothes red and creating a mess around him. A flood of blood would cover the ground.

 

He physically shook his head to get rid of the thought as he approached the next dark rooms, the beeping remaining.

 

Changbin didn’t use the back rooms often. His house was too big for one person, so most rooms he couldn’t make use of were guest rooms as he couldn’t come up with other ways to use them. Nobody was in the guest rooms either.

 

Leaving the third and final guest room, Changbin looked over his shoulder once more. He was at the very back of the house now, and the light made the normal backdoor appear menacing.

 

He also never used the back door. To be safe, though, Changbin approached it and twisted the handle.

 

It didn’t open.

 

Changbin had locked it weeks ago and it had remained so. Relief.

 

It seemed the floor was clear, so Changbin used the back staircase to head upstairs. This one was old and the steps had become brittle, creaking under his every step. Changbin cringed whenever it happened, but it ultimately didn’t result in anyone showing themselves.

 

Upstairs, everything was the same. The beeping was still ever so present in his ears, and Changbin figured it wasn’t  real. It couldn’t have been, for it was still the same volume and that didn’t make any sense. He had moved away from where he had initially heard it, so it was impossible that it sounded exactly the same still. _My brain is playing a trick on me._

 

Not for the first time recently.

 

After clearing all rooms with trembling hands and enduring all kinds of horrible intrusive thoughts, Changbin finally went to his room with an eased mind. Still, Changbin doubted that he would be getting any sleep. He refused to return the knife to the kitchen, which was sensible, but putting it on the nightstand with the risk to doze off . . . also created a lot other risks. He wouldn’t fall asleep anyway, he was sure of that.

 

In his room, the beeping in his ears still hadn’t stopped. Changbin had left on all the lights in his house, but he wasn’t going to go and turn them off again. He could afford one night of electricity waste. Changbin sat on his bed and let his head fall, exhaling deeply as he loosened his grip around the knife.

 

Beeping. Why didn’t it stop already? Changbin looked up again, around his room. Where could the beeping be coming from? He had already accepted that it was nothing. Just his mind.

 

And then he found something that matched the beeping.

 

On the opposite wall, next do the door, Changbin had installed a small shelf. He kept all kinds of stuff on it, stuff he rarely ever used. And between a collection of snow globes, was a small red light that blinked in the same rhythm as the beeping in his ears. Upon spotting it, the sound stopped.

 

Changbin averted his eyes, and to cover his realization up, he put the knife down and headed towards the bookshelf that was in the corner, right next to the shelf with the blinking red light. His fingers hovered above his books, Changbin not being able to really settle on one, but he figured it didn’t matter. Not in the slightest. This was a cover-up, after all. He picked a book Woojin had gifted him and returned to the bed, shoving the knife under a pillow.

 

He hoped that was enough to fool whoever would be watching the footage of him and trick them into thinking that he hadn’t noticed the camera after all.

 

He didn’t understand how the beeping came to be, for the faint blinking itself didn’t make any sounds at all. Instead of playing a trick on him, his brain could have tried to protect him, but there was no plausible explanation as to how that could work.

 

Changbin was pushed into the headboard, one hand behind his back as he flipped the pages of the book with the other. His legs were angled and he had placed the book in his lap, reading comfortably enough. Using the hand behind his back, Changbin would brush over the blade every now and then to ensure that it was still there. As if it could disappear into thin air.

 

For the rest of the night, Changbin tried to not look into the direction of the blinking at all.

 

Woojin was only a call away.

  
  
  
  
  


Changbin blinked until his vision was clear and sat up. His eyes darted around the room, but obviously, no one was there. He had truly panicked the night before, all because of some strange dream. It wasn’t the first time he had had a nightmare. _No reason to freak out like that,_ Changbin told himself and rose. But he was getting paranoid. He was starting to feel weird about this. His attitude towards this huge mess seemed to be constantly changing. Changbin didn’t know what to do.

 

He went into the bathroom to wash his face and cool down. After finishing his morning routine, Changbin retrieved the knife from under the pillow and still didn’t look at the blinking camera. Someone was live streaming footage of him. It hadn’t stopped yet. Changbin had no idea whether they were watching at this very moment or not.

 

And how they got into the house to install them. He swallowed. This was getting worse by the second. But he pretended to not know and Changbin went downstairs to get breakfast.

  
  


He remembered the phone. Changbin went into the living room and got it before heading to the kitchen. He prepared his food and sat to eat, hand hovering over the fixed telephone to call Woojin.

 

Brief hesitation stopped him but he did it. He hoped that Woojin wasn't too busy, given he was probably already at the office. Woojin's work hours were strange, he always worked early and stayed until evening. Changbin believed he was doing it voluntarily because he had nothing else going on in his life.

 

Now, dealing with all this crap must have been quite a change, Changbin thought as the phone rang. After a few rings, Woojin picked up.

 

"Hi, Bin. Did you sleep well?" Woojin was already at work.

 

"Yeah, more or less. Had a nightmare, but nothing special, really," Changbin said and waited for the phone to turn on. He deliberately left out the paranoia fueling him and getting him to search his whole place. And of course he didn’t mention the cameras; that would be trespassing, a reason for police to be involved. He didn’t want Woojin to do it.

 

"I hope you're doing okay," the genuine concern in Woojin's voice made Changbin feel utterly grateful to have him. But also feel like he didn't deserve it.

 

"I'm fine, trust me. Anyway, how are you?"

 

"Didn't sleep well," Woojin confessed and sighed. "The messages are truly something. But at least you don't have to see them."

 

That hit Changbin hard. When Changbin told Woojin about the phone he would have to leave out the fact that he actually examined multiple of the saved photos. Woojin was dealing with the terror so that Changbin didn't have to, tried to figure out a connection and meaning, and although Changbin was indeed disgusted by blood and violence, he still looked at the pictures. It made him feel sorry for Woojin, who was usually better at coping with this, but perhaps it was the fact that this was real life andn ot fiction.

 

"Thanks for dealing with it, Woojin. I have something to show you later at work," Changbin said while he was playing with the spoon in his coffee. "You still have my phone, right?"

 

"Yes of course, why? It's right in front of me on the desk right now."

 

"Okay," Changbin replied. "I'll head to work early today then. I'll clock in later, but you need to see this."

 

"I'll be waiting for you then," Woojin said. "Uh, Younghyun is in front of the door. Probably eavesdropping. I'll hang up now, see you later."

 

Changbin put the phone aside and silently ate his food.

  
  


When he was done, Changbin saved doing the dishes for later and got ready. He put the phone into his coat's pocket and fixed his black hair in the mirror. Glancing past his reflection, Changbin noticed that the window behind him was open. It was the source of a light breeze dragging through the corridor and licking at his skin.

 

Changbin finished and headed to the window to close and lock it. When he wrapped his hand around the handle, blood shot into his face. He sat right there the night before. He couldn't remember if it had been closed or opened, then, and fear rushed over his body, heating it up in a split second.

 

But he cooled down quickly. The window he was closing wasn't open entirely. It was tilted. Nobody could fit through that unless they had the skeleton and flexibility of a cat.

 

Changbin rubbed his hand across his face in an attempt to collect himself. He had all the reason to be paranoid, considering he refused to go to the police for help and everything was getting worse. Maybe going to the police was for the better. It could save whatever lay in the future. But Changbin didn't think rationally regarding that matter. He just feared that there would be something on him.

 

Something did catch his eye though. He had been able to convince himself that no one got into the house after searching everything as thoroughly as he could, but that didn't mean that no one . . . got onto his _property._

 

His house was surrounded by a garden. The part on the left side, which he was looking at, had a tool shed. Like the name revealed, he kept all the necessary tools there to take care of the garden, also a small table for the porch or the garden itself. Looking through the window, Changbin spotted a trail of photographs leading right to the shed.

 

He didn't have to look at them. And Changbin wasn't stupid, he also wasn't going to follow them and see what was in the shed. He didn't want to see it, nothing of it. What Changbin wanted to do was to get the hell out of his house and go to Woojin straight away. All of this was unnecessary. At this point whoever was behind this was just playing with him. Showing him how easy this was. To them, this clearly must be a joke. This was supposed to be funny.

 

As he rushed through the door, Changbin made sure to lock it before heading for the car. He left the shed behind, the photographs behind.

 

Changbin knew he didn't want to look at them because all he was able to make out from the distance he had stood in was red.

  
  
  


He was unnerved the entire car ride. His fingers danced along the steering wheel and Changbin couldn't get the shed out of his head. He never locked it, nobody cared about an old shed and even less about gardening tools that were inside. Except, now, somebody could and probably did take advantage of that. Changbin's mind raced to all the possibilities there were, and really, he was being creative.

 

While driving, the phone was ever so present in Changbin's pocket. He stopped at the traffic light and could have sworn the phone vibrated in that very moment. But he didn’t look. _Using the phone and driving is dangerous,_ he reminded himself, almost a comically obvious thought he only had to distract his mind from expecting a corpse or something in the shed.

 

He arrived at their workplace under incredible stress. Changbin sped up the stairs and took the stairs instead of the elevator as well. He briefly greeted the secretary as he made his way to his, Woojin's and Younghyun's shared office.

 

Younghyun was inside when Changbin got there. He was absolutely not allowed to find out about any of this. Changbin stood in front of the door, hand raised to knock as he forced himself to calm down.

 

Then he opened the door just a crack and popped his head through it. "Hi," he greeted, stress still obvious as it was merely an exhale. He pointed to Woojin. "Mind coming out?"

 

Younghyun gave him a confused look as if to say _'What are you doing here?'_ , but Changbin didn't mind. It was also his office. Although he wasn't supposed to be there, yet.

 

Woojin finished what he was typing at an impressing speed, then left everything to join Changbin outside.

 

As soon as the door was closed shut, Changbin pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it to Woojin. "Take a look."

 

"Whose phone is this?" Woojin asked Changbin with a quizzical look on his face.

 

"Unlock it," Changbin ordered and didn't lift his gaze from the phone.

 

Woojin obeyed. When the pinscreen showed up, he asked, "Well, what's the passcode?"

 

"Mine."

 

Woojin nodded, brows still not parting, and lower lip sucked in as if this was a task that required a lot of concentration. "And now?"

 

Changbin sighed and looked around. No curious co-workers nearby, no Younghyun watching them through the windows. "See for yourself. I . . . couldn't."

 

That told Woojin everything he had to know, although it wasn't quite true. Changbin saw everything he had to see. Only the videos he didn't dare watch. And lying to Woojin after everything he had done made him feel like shit.

 

Woojin did the only things you could do on a phone without special apps, just like Changbin had. When he saw the pictures, his mouth fell open. A few minutes passed where Woojin simply scrolled through the content. Changbin watched him open the video folder as well, but out of fear that it could be too loud, Woojin didn’t play any of them.

 

Changbin was about to suggest that he checked the messages, when he remembered the texts saying Changbin stalked Chan. He bit down on his tongue slightly, making it peek out from between his lips. He hoped that Woojin didn’t go into the messages by himself.

 

“This is insane, where did you get this from?” Woojin said, wide eyed and voice hushed.

 

Changbin sighed. “It was in my mailbox. I thought you returned my phone. But well . . .”

 

“That wasn’t it,” Woojin finished the sentence and nodded. “The stuff I—I mean you received was pretty messed up as well. I didn’t want to tell you about it because it could have upset you. I didn’t receive anything in two days, so I thought it stopped for good, and now you got this . . . Changbin, what are you planning to do?”

 

He knew that he was trying to suggest for him to go to the police once more. It wasn’t the smartest or logical decision, but Changbin didn’t want to and wouldn’t go to the police. Perhaps that was a mistake.

 

“I don’t know,” Changbin simply said and continued with, “But that’s not all.”

 

Woojin locked eyes with him in anticipation. A moment passed where nothing happened. Voices and steps echoed through the hallway, making Changbin aware of the fact that they shouldn’t be speaking this freely about what was going on. They needed to go somewhere safer, where the walls didn’t have ears. Except, at this point, Changbin didn’t know where that could be.

 

The greys of the environment were dull and plain, making everything feel normal and worst of all . . . accessible. There was nothing personal about this place, why would there be, it was a workplace for more people than Changbin knew. Anyone could walk in here and blend in perfectly. Who knew that at this very moment nobody was watching them?

 

“When I got ready to see you this morning,” Changbin lowered his voice and his friend had to lean forward in order to hear him properly, “I noticed there was a trail of photographs leading to my shed in the garden. I didn’t see the pictures, before you ask. But I know they were there and it's -- it's the dumbest thing, hyung, this is all a joke to them now. I have no idea what could be in the shed, since it’s never locked, but I . . . I’m expecting the worst.”

 

“Holy shit, Changbin,” Woojin said and his eyes widened. “This is crazy, this—it’s going too far. Changbin, I understand your fear of going to the police, but at this point . . . somebody has to know. If someone is fucking living in your shed or whatever the fuck,” he lowered his voice and glanced around, “or hiding something there, it could get ugly. Really, really ugly.”

 

“I know, but—” Changbin was interrupted by the phone vibrating. The display lit up and a text message appeared.

 

_Chan_

 

That was all it read. To Changbin, it felt as though a bucket of ice cold water was emptied over him. Woojin stared at the message and his hand started trembling. Changbin had never seen Woojin in such a state before. Fear was written all over his face and Changbin knew why. He was scared that Chan was in danger.

 

“We have to go,” Woojin said, not looking up from the screen. “I’ll tell Younghyun it’s urgent.”

 

“Wait, where do you want to go?” Changbin couldn’t follow his quick decision.

 

“To Chan’s,” Woojin hissed. “I thought it was obvious. We have to check on him.”

 

Woojin was right. How hadn’t he realized that? When he saw the message, the first thought he had was that the person was going to reveal the true nature of Changbin’s love for Chan. But he stopped doing that, didn’t he. He was good. Wasn’t he?

 

Woojin opened the door and peeked inside like Changbin had and called, “Younghyun, I’m going with Changbin because of an urgent matter. I’ll be back soon, hopefully. If you finish my report—it’s only a few sentences—I’m buying you coffee for a month. See you.”

 

With that, Woojin shut the door a little too loudly, and grabbed Changbin’s sleeve. He dragged Changbin down the hall, his large steps making Changbin trip over his own feet but Woojin forced him along. That caught a few glances from their co-workers, but Changbin was the only one who cared. Soon enough, the two of them were down the stairs and heading towards Changbin’s car.

 

“Leave it here,” Woojin ordered and pointed at his car instead. Changbin obeyed and put his car keys back into his pocket.

 

Woojin threw his car keys at him. “You drive. I want to take a closer look at the phones.”

 

“Did you get mine?” Changbin asked as he caught the keys and walked around to the driver’s seat. He couldn’t remember seeing Woojin open the drawer to retrieve the phone.

 

“I already had it in the pocket of my jacket,” Woojin just said and climbed into the passenger’s seat. He embodied stress, with his quickly muttered sentences and jerky movements. Woojin was quite impulsive. Changbin however looked at the consequences everything could have in the long run. And sometimes, Changbin thought too far.

 

All settled in and starting the car, Changbin shot his friend a glance. He pulled out both phones and held them up, started turning them in the light as if he was comparing them. Woojin’s lips moved slightly, as if he was silently talking to himself to concentrate. Changbin didn’t question it, and simply did what he wanted him to do.

 

Today, the streets were full. They were always full, but now that Changbin was in an extreme hurry— for the first time in a long time—it seemed as though the chains of cars had no end. So many people walked the streets . . . Changbin had never batted them an eye before. He had always been lost in his own thoughts. But now, Changbin didn’t really know what to think.

 

Woojin was silent the entire car ride, so Changbin didn’t want to interrupt whatever he was going. If that brought them a step closer to making it stop, whatever Woojin was trying to do right now was fine. Only Changbin feared that Woojin could open the messages, which caused him to glance at him every few seconds.

 

More time passed, and Changbin’s fingers wrapped tighter around the steering wheel. He tried hard to focus on the colours of the street, the sun rays on his skin, the people passing by— but there was a nagging anxiety that made him worry. It was his fault that Woojin even knew about all of this. Maybe that would be returning to bite him in the ass. All he had wanted was some help though, right? So why was it that he couldn’t accept all of it?

 

Easy answer.

 

The ride was over after roughly twenty minutes. Changbin was all too familiar with Chan’s apartment. Woojin didn’t question why he knew exactly where Chan lived, since for a work occasion the four of them decided to drive together—living close to each other and all—to save gas, where Woojin had picked up Changbin and then went to get Chan. Of course, driving together had been Changbin’s idea. But that was way before his confession.

 

They drove around a little to find a good parking spot, giving everything in the imminent surrounding was taken. Once Changbin had parked the car, Woojin already shot out of his seat. Changbin felt a little bad for being less upset about this than Woojin.

 

Changbin struggled keeping up with Woojin, as he didn’t really want to run, but he also didn’t want to arrive later than Woojin. To other passerbys, it probably looked like Changbin lost it. He stumbled, then walked faster, then walked slowly, and picked up the pace again, all only to not lose Woojin out of sight. It wasn’t like he didn’t know where Chan was living. He just didn’t like the idea of Woojin being alone with Chan.

 

What are you thinking, Changbin caught himself and shook his head to shoo the thought away. Woojin had always been supportive of Changbin’s love for Chan and that he wanted to try and pursue a relationship with him. He wouldn’t just go and snatch him. Even so, the time difference in which Woojin and Changbin arrived at Chan’s place independently would be five seconds.

 

His friend waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. Only when Changbin was by his side, the two went up together and Changbin knew that Woojin was trying to keep himself from ringing the doorbell a million times in a row.

 

Changbin leaned back. Chan’s car was there. The curtains were open. It was probably a regular day in Chan’s life. Well, Changbin hadn't figured out how Chan had reacted to the smashed perfume, the missing things. Maybe it distressed him. Or maybe he didn't care.

 

The door vibrated and Woojin pushed it open. The two walked past a flight of stairs which led to the second apartment and waited for Chan to open the door to his. It opened just a crack and half of Chan’s face was shown.

 

He sighed deeply and closed his eyes, then opened the door wider. “What are you two doing here?”

 

“Are you alright?” Woojin asked right away and Changbin wanted to bury his face in his hands. Woojin was going to make his love feel unnerved and unsafe without good reason.

 

No, that wasn’t true. Changbin had woken up in the middle of the night to search his house with a knife because he was scared. There might have been something in his shed. For the past days, Changbin had been spammed with unsettling pictures and photos had been plastered all over Chan’s car, pulling him right into this matter. Woojin was doing what was right. Changbin needed to accept that.

 

“As alright as I can be, I guess,” Chan said and the corners of his lips didn’t curl upwards like they usually did when he talked. Everything he said was layered with a smile. This time, it was not. “What do you want?”

 

“Can we come in? We need to talk,” Woojin said.

 

Changbin took that as a punch in the stomach. “About what?” He had thought Woojin only wanted to check if Chan was still breathing and go. What was there to talk about?

 

Woojin looked at him as if he had three heads. “Changbin—we owe him. If you don’t want to tell the police, at least tell him, for god’s sake.”

 

That shut Changbin up. Like Woojin, he now waited for Chan’s permission to come inside. If Woojin thought he had to, good for him.

 

Chan hesitated. “I—okay. Okay, come inside, but please don’t stay long.”

 

The two nodded and Chan opened the door wider for them. The two slipped past him and Chan closed the door.

  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  


Changbin had seen the inside of Chan’s place four times. Once, briefly, when Changbin and Woojin had picked him up. The second time was when Changbin had invited himself. Breaking in was such a harsh term, for he didn’t break anything to get inside nor did he take anything. He just had a look around. Then the third time . . . well, he didn't break anything to get inside but he did take a few things. This was the fourth time, and the second time with Woojin together.

 

Chan had a good eye for decoration, everything seemed to have been carefully picked out to match everything else in the apartment. Changbin knew it had all looked different once. However, now Changbin noticed a few moving boxes, and some of the shelves were empty.

 

“Are you moving?” Changbin asked although the answer was predictable.

 

Chan looked around as he led them to the kitchen where he offered them seats at the table. “Ah, yes. I’m moving back in with my parents for a while. The day after tomorrow, actually. After that I’ll be coming back every now and then to really clear my apartment while I look for somewhere else.”

 

“Why are you moving? You just got a great position at work.”

 

Chan sat and looked at the two, serious. His eyes wandered from Changbin’s face to Woojin’s, and lingered there. “When you said we would talk, did you mean . . . _really_ talk?”

 

Woojin nodded.

 

“I can’t live here anymore,” Chan pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up. “I’m being threatened every - single - day. It . . . started after going out with Changbin,” he looked at the mentioned man apologetically, “telling me to stop seeing him or they’ll kill me. And when I came home one day some things of mine were missing or broken.”

 

Changbin bit down on his lip. So it wasn’t just him. And it wasn’t just Woojin. They had even started terrorizing Chan. But at least Chan didn't suspect him, which meant he still had a chance somehow.

 

He had never wanted this. Changbin would have never, ever thought that something as harmless as trying to get closer to and understand the person he loved would result in something this awful. A line was just crossed.

 

“That’s why I was so distant, Changbin,” Chan confessed and averted his eyes. He looked genuinely sorry. “I did want to go on a second date with you, but they didn’t allow me to say anything about it let alone agree to set it up. The things they would send me — and are still sending me — are just . . . insane.”

 

That made Changbin happy. Despite the serious situation and the meaning behind the words they were exchanging, every single one of the emotions which had mingled together and resided in Changbin today disappeared. He was just happy to hear that Chan did want to go on another date with him.

 

When Changbin confessed, awkwardly, saying that he really, really, liked Chan . . . Chan had only said ‘Okay’. Chan had smiled, his nose did the cute scrunch it always did when he smiled brightly, and that was all for a moment. Then, he added, ‘I accept that you. And I won’t treat you differently. But please understand that I don’t really feel the same way. However, if you need me, I’ll be there for you.’

 

At that point, Changbin’s mind had went: _What the fuck was that?_ He rejected him. He truly had rejected him. And now? Chan confirmed that the first date had been successful. He had worked hard enough to make Chan want to go on a second date. Changbin was happy.

 

The conversation had proceeded without him. Changbin snapped out of it when Chan asked, “Is what you came for related to it?”

 

To which Woojin responded, “Obviously. They’re obsessed with Changbin. But I just thought that they were, you know . . . trying to terrorize him before they kill him,”—he looked at Changbin—“I’m sorry but it’s the truth. We need to do something about this.”

 

“Why, what was happening?” Chan crossed his arms and leaned forward.

 

“Changbin, do you want to?” Woojin offered and Changbin nodded, perhaps too enthusiastically. Chan was sitting across of him, close. Chan was close.

 

And so he started. He told Chan about the photos, told him about the phone he found and what was on it. Chan listened attentively, occasional ruffles through his hair filling Changbin’s story with motion. Chan did that when he was stressed. Changbin had noticed.

 

“. . . And then I looked around my house just because I was being paranoid, I guess. But from the inside, my house is obviously clear. Though, in my garden, there is a shed--” Woojin interrupted Changbin.

 

“Calm down, Changbin. It’s okay. We’ll find a solution for this,” Woojin assured him, and it was only now that Changbin even noticed his sentences were so choppy. It was nice of Woojin to assume that Changbin spoke like this because he was upset, but it was actually because Chan’s face wasn’t too far away from his own and Chan was looking good as always.

 

“Yes, yes,” Changbin breathed in deeply. “There is a shed. A trail of photographs led to it. I haven’t looked at the pictures nor at the inside. I went to see Woojin right after I had seen that and then we came here.”

 

Silence.

 

Chan was letting the information he received sink in. It was a lot, indeed, but Changbin was grateful for it— Chan looked extremely good with his furrowed eyebrows and unfocused eyes in concentration. Chan always looked good. That was one of the reasons why Changbin was so attracted to him.

 

Chan sighed. “This is all so messed up. Why has nobody gone to the police yet?”

 

He didn’t really expect an answer to that question. He carelessly threw it into the room, already knowing the answer. They were all being held at gunpoint, more or less. Not Changbin, though. And that’s why he felt the need to explain himself. “He’s threatening to kill all of us if I go to the police. I can’t risk it. I don’t know how quickly he works, or where he is.”

 

Woojin was still fumbling around with the phones. He eyed one closely, inspecting it like he did in the car. Chan propped his head up on his hands.

 

“What will we do now? I can’t just move and leave you to deal with this. You’re—”

 

“No, just do it,” Woojin cut him off. “That’s one person out of two to get rid of him.”

 

“Two?”

 

“He’s not doing anything to me,” Woojin explained, and it was true. “He must have known I had Changbin’s phone because he gave him a new one. Still he didn’t contact me on my own number, ever. It’s not like he didn’t know I exist.” Changbin and Chan knew what incident he was referring to.

 

“So, if you’re safe, we can try and work things out for Changbin,” Woojin continued.

 

“I don’t think that’s fair. Changbin is in more danger than I am,” Chan said, his eyes darting back to Changbin. The latter felt his stomach flip. He was worried about him.

 

Woojin hesitated with his answer, still not looking up from the phones he was holding. Then, Woojin did, and was looking at Changbin instead. “I hate to say this but . . . at least by now, I doubt it. He told you to stay away from Changbin and yet he’s sitting in your kitchen.”

 

Neither of the other two knew how to respond. It was true. Yet the way Woojin had said it . . . made chills run down Changbin’s spine. He wasn’t the only one who felt more discomfort all of a sudden.

 

“Yes,” Chan said. “But how is he going to know? No one’s ever followed me home, or sneaked around my apartment, let alone broken into it before that day. I would have noticed that. And my apartment is pretty small with basically no hiding spots. I searched the whole place for cameras or something but there's nothing of that sort here. I'm sure of that.”

 

His eyes landed on Changbin, but it must have been coincidence. Chan was talking to only two people. He couldn’t make eye contact with both at the same time. So, he chose Changbin. Randomly. What he was talking about didn’t have anything to do with Changbin directly. It would have contradicted what he just said if he noticed, right?

 

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” Woojin confessed and fell into silence. But he did make a valuable and valid point.

 

Chan sighed into his hands and ran a hand through his hair once more. This was all getting too much, for all of them. A solution was easy to find, but it was out of question for one out of three people. Chan hadn’t gone to the police either. And he wouldn’t.

 

Then he thanked the two for letting him know. It explained the photos on his car and gave him reason to think differently of Changbin again.

 

He had a confession to make. “You know . . . it wasn’t so difficult for me to stay away from you,” Chan started, turning to Changbin. The conversation topic had completely changed, perhaps for the better. For Changbin, at least. “I thought someone you used to date or Woojin did that with my car. That’s why I was confused . . . and also kind of disappointed. I thought someone did it because there was, you know, something between you and Woojin. And I was getting in the way. Honestly speaking, I was also a little upset. I thought I had gone out with you when you were already with Woojin, which would have been wrong, you know.”

 

Chan was a good person, through and through.

 

But this just confused Changbin.

 

He hadn't made up the clothes and the parfume and then letter begging for his ex to take him back. Wasn't that the same thing? Or had he prepared all of that before seeing Changbin?

 

“But seeing how you were at work, in breaks and stuff, I kind of tried to tell myself that that wasn’t it. I took my distance anyway. And a few days after that, the messages started coming in. Kind of self-explanatory,” the corners of Chan’s mouth curled upwards again. It was the first and only time he had smiled during their visit.

 

It looked amazing on him.

 

“I’m sorry this can’t come to be,” Chan then said and it took Changbin a few seconds to realize what he was implying. His face started getting red and he glanced at Woojin, who seemingly wasn’t paying attention at all. The fact that he was here while Chan tried to express his feelings and discuss their relationship bothered Changbin, though. Woojin wasn’t one to judge or anything of the like— he was usually an expert in minding his own business. Although he was present, that’s what he was doing now, too. And it bothered Changbin anyways.

 

“Maybe when all this is over . . .” Changbin replied, trying to force himself to smile. He wasn’t happy now.

 

Chan hadn’t noticed. “Then we could try again. Do you think it will be soon?”

 

He had no idea. “Hopefully. We’re getting closer to figuring it out. We’ll find a way.”

 

Changbin didn’t like it, but he figured this might be the last time he would get to speak to Chan like this. And so he asked him, even though he didn’t want Woojin to be present. “Why did you go out with me?”

 

“You mean, because of what I had said earlier?” Chan rolled his eyes back as if he was thinking hard. “I thought you were adorable. You weren’t persistent, in fact you left me alone for several months, and then decided to try again in a different way. I thought that was way better than, you know, guilt tripping or forcing me to date you. It was a clumsy attempt. I changed my mind in the middle of my response.”

 

Changbin nodded. That was good. Really good. He had done well, found out exactly what Chan wanted. Maybe that hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

  
  


Woojin surprised them when he shot up. He kicked his chair back, making it fall over, and raced out of the kitchen so fast that Changbin didn’t even have time to fathom what was going on. Chan stormed out right after him, and Changbin followed.

 

He tore the door open and stumbled into the chilly corridor, through the door to the outside, and threw both phones onto the stairs.

 

“What are you doing?! Isn’t that evidence?” Chan asked and put a hand on Woojin’s shoulder, trying to get him to turn around. Woojin disregarded him, brushed off his hand and stumbled down the stairs.

 

He started to kick the phones, step on them aggressively, until Changbin could see that the screens were already completely shattered. They called out to him multiple times, trying to assess what the hell he was doing, but Woojin didn’t respond until he found a rock next to the neighbor’s car and started smashing the phones into bits and pieces with it.

 

Once they were completely broken and torn apart, Woojin panted. “Changbin, you’re sleeping at my place until we have this figured out. Chan, we won’t leave until you’re in the car and on your way to your parents’ place.”

 

“Why? What are you doing?” Chan responded and Changbin stood behind him closely. Although he was watching Woojin, wide eyed, he still couldn’t shut out Chan’s scent. He smelled of expensive aftershave.

 

“It's pinged.” Woojin was still hitting the phones with the rocks. Across the road, a passerby was pointing Woojin out to their friend.

 

Changbin had heard the term somewhere, but he couldn’t remember what it meant.

 

“It means that your phone is being tracked. Information is accessed without you knowing it. The only way to know is that your phone sometimes feels heavier or hot when you don’t use it. But if you’re not using it you’re less likely to notice since it’s probably not in your hand.

 

“But on the way here, and while I was holding them in the kitchen, I noticed. If the stalker didn’t know where Chan lived before, he does now.”

 

Changbin suddenly remembered that he did know. He had sent him messages. Saying that he had seen Changbin sneak around Chan’s house. He must have concluded that it was Chan, not someone else. So what was he trying to achieve with that? Trying to trace back every single step he took?

 

“And he shouldn’t know where you live, because you kept my phone in the drawer at work? Chan’s phone isn’t pinged so he’d be safe at his parents’?” Changbin concluded through what Woojin had explained. The latter nodded.

 

Chan looked like someone had punched him in the face. He turned around to face Changbin, and opened and closed his mouth repeatedly as if he wanted to say something but no words were coming out. Then he put one hand to Changbin’s chest, the other on his arm, and said, “You—you join Woojin then. I’m gonna go get my car keys and call my parents.”

 

He disappeared into the house and the parts of Changbin’s body that he had touched were still tingling.

  
  
  
  
  


“Changbin, this is so fucked up. I’m calling the police,” Woojin said as they watched Chan drive off and then started the car themselves.

 

“No,” Changbin still stuck to what he believed. “He’s going to kill us. He got this far and he would do it. We just need to find out why he’s doing this and how to stop it. Give him what he wants, whatever. I’ll personally do it.”

 

“You’re being stupid, Changbin,” Woojin looked away from the street to glare at him. “At first it could have been classified as like some sick joke. Only Chan and I knew about your reactions when you see blood. But it doesn’t matter anymore, because it’s not somebody trying to scare you a little, it’s proof of what he’s capable of doing. Changbin, if you fear that he’ll kill us, we just have to tell the police everything and then they’ll take us into custody until they caught him. We’d be safe there.”

 

“Well, what do you want to show him? You destroyed the phones, man,” Changbin was visibly angered now and it didn’t slip Woojin. “They won’t do anything about the photos on the email.”

 

Woojin took a turn and parked in the next spot he could find. Changbin groaned. His friend turned to him and said, “Why are you so against being safe? What is up? What are you hiding from me?”

 

“I’m not hiding anything, I’m just speaking the truth!” He was lying.

 

“No, really, any normal fucking human being would have been to the police by now. Why do you refuse to? Changbin, if you left something important out, tell me now and I won’t be angry.”

 

“You’re already angry! Woojin, I’m just scared for our lives.” Changbin put extra stress on his last words.

 

“Then go to the fucking police,” the two of them fighting had already attracted pedestrians’ attention, everyone coming from the front and seeing them in the windshield watching them until they passed. Woojin raising his voice wasn’t particularly helpful.

 

“I can’t—Woojin, he was in my fucking house,” Changbin shouted back and Woojin went silent. Changbin broke out with it, he could no longer contain himself. “I was terrified. I searched the whole house with a kitchen knife after I woke from a nightmare where someone stabbed me. My subconscious made up fucking beeping noises so that I would notice the damn blinking red lights all over my house. There’s a camera in my bedroom, Woojin. He knows how to get into my house without leaving a trace. Who knows what else he is capable of doing? If we don’t play by his rules, we are _dead._ ”

 

Woojin didn’t say anything.

 

He started the car again and drove off, what was left of the car ride passing silently.

 

Changbin had been truthful. But he spoke as if he himself didn’t have footage of Chan’s peaceful life within the walls of his apartment.

 

Guilt.

  
  


▲ ▼ ▲

  
  
  


“I’m sorry,” Woojin said as they got out of the car he parked a little down the street. His house was a few others away.

 

“What for? Woojin, don’t be.” There were many moment were Changbin wished Woojin wasn’t there. Mostly when he was talking to Chan. Sometimes when he got persistent about anything, really. But at the end of the day, Woojin was his friend. And Changbin couldn’t be mad at him for long.

 

“I must have made a mistake, somewhere along the line,” Woojin said as he locked his car and Changbin sighed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you trust me enough. If I had, you would have told me about the cameras and everything earlier. And by the way you said it, I could tell that you didn’t want to tell me at all.”

 

More guilt bubbled inside of him. It wasn’t that, he wanted to tell Woojin. But he really didn’t know what it was, then. Changbin had a lot of things to deal with. His primary struggles were either getting out of control or haunting him. His mind wandered to the content on his computer every five seconds, fearing the police could discover it and with that, Chan. And on top of all that , he fought with Woojin. The only person who was actually around to try and help him despite the danger. Changbin couldn’t shake off the feeling that if Woojin knew about what he had done, he wouldn’t be this nice anymore. Definitely not.

 

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that,” Changbin tried to explain, but he was unsure himself. “I was just acting irrationally. I should have told you. This is my fault. Not yours.”

 

Woojin unlocked the door to his house. “At least you told me now. Sorry for pressuring you.”

 

Changbin didn’t respond to that. He hoped Woojin accepted his silence as something positive, like it was supposed to be.

 

“Before we think about how to proceed . . . shall I make something to eat?” Woojin suggest as he took off his jacket.

 

“I’ll help you—”

 

“No, it’s okay. You get into the living room and lay down. We have to figure out how to proceed without involving the police _and_ staying safe. Rest.”

 

Changbin nodded and did as he was told. He let himself fall onto the couch and listened to Woojin going about his plans and making various noises with plates and material. He closed his eyes and took a breather. It was much needed.

 

. . .

  
  


Woojin dialed the police as he put some plates for his ingredients onto the kitchen counter. He squeezed the phone in between his shoulder and ear as he continued, so that Changbin wouldn’t get suspicious of him. He was going too far. This stalker broke into his house and had footage of him? And he really chose to stay silent about it? Woojin had done everything in his power to disregard his common sense and respect Changbin’s decision, but this was it. He had to do it.

 

He waited until he was connected with an officer at the other end. Woojin was washing vegetables in the sink when the voice asked about his emergency.

 

He lowered his voice. “My name is Kim Woojin. A stalker has been terrorizing my friend and broke into his apartment. My friend refused to call the police but it’s getting bad. He has been sending my friend gory pictures of chopped up and tortured bodies. Apparently he threatened to kill my friend if he called the police, so I’m calling in his stead. Please make sure he is safe. He is at my house at this very moment.”

 

The woman took notes on what he was saying and asked about his address. Woojin gave it to her and she asked if they were in an imminent state of danger. Woojin denied, and the woman informed him that officers should stop by soon. Woojin heard a sound behind him.

 

“I understood you the first time. I’m handing in my report tomorrow, no, you can’t look over it . . . I already told you this. Yes. Just focus on finishing yours and stop bothering me,” Woojin broke out in a sweat and his hands were trembling in the sink. He hoped that his friend couldn’t see. What was he so scared for? Changbin would only be mad if he found out.

 

Woojin hung up, hoping the woman understood and looked over his shoulder. Changbin was standing in the door frame, leaning against it and staring at the floor in front of him. Thank god, he’s spaced out, Woojin thought and finished up, placing the vegetables into a bowl next to the sink.

 

“Any special side dishes you’re craving?” Woojin asked and returned to work. Changbin didn’t move.

 

“Whatever is fine.”

 

He hadn’t heard it. Woojin didn’t have to say anything until the police knocked on the door. And then it would be fine. They would protect Changbin until they found whoever was responsible. Woojin didn’t feel the tiniest bit of guilt for disregarding Changbin’s wishes. It was only sensible.

 

“You know, Changbin,” Woojin started as he cut the food, “I’ll head over to your house after dinner.”

 

Changbin’s eyes widened and his lost stare disappeared. “Why? I thought it’s dangerous—”

 

“I want to see for myself. I’ll be fine.”

 

Woojin didn’t want to go to Changbin’s house. He wanted to go to Chan’s instead, and try to find something that the stalker could have installed there. Anything. If Changbin wasn’t going to do anything, he should at least try. Changbin’s place wasn’t safe, he wasn’t a complete idiot. But maybe he could find something in Chan’s apartment that was helpful.

 

They talked about how Changbin would be staying over for the next couple of days, what they would do, and they were already eating. Woojin hadn’t made anything special. It took the police ten years to get to somewhere if it wasn’t completely urgent, so he hoped to be out of the house before they arrived. Changbin would know how to deal with it. But Woojin didn’t want to be there to see Changbin’s disappointed expression. He was disappointing his friend. For his safety. Woojin was being the rational one here, not Changbin.

  
  
  
  
  
  


With Changbin agreeing to reside at his place for a little while and ultimately leaving him there, Woojin finally left his house and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

 

Carefully, Woojin locked the door from the outside. He turned the key once, twice, thrice — until he was sure that nobody could try and pick on it without being too obvious. There were less people out on the street now, basically nobody was outside, so Woojin needed to be extra careful.

 

To be sure that Changbin would be fine, Woojin walked around the house and checked all the windows. He pushed every window slightly to ensure that not a single one of them gave in under his touch. And if it was broken, then Changbin would hear it. Considering the current terrified state Changbin was in, Woojin doubted he wouldn’t be able to pick up every single suspicious sound. Shattering glass was obvious enough.

 

The only problem Woojin had when he departed, was that if something were to happen, Changbin would have difficulties getting out. With every window locked, he would go through the troubles of unlocking, and he didn’t have the keys to the locked door. But Woojin was sure that at his place, Changbin would be safe. The pinged phone had never once been at his house, for he hadn’t wanted to deal with the messages at home. It had always been in a drawer at work.

 

Changbin would be fine.

 

Woojin only worried about Changbin.

  
  
  


Woojin played with the keychains and unlocked his car as he approached it. He adjusted his jacket and sighed, watching the car blink and trying to ready himself for his visit at Chan’s place.

 

“Excuse me?” A voice behind him said, nasal and high. Woojin turned, he knew he would be asked for help.

 

Instead, before he knew it, a fist flew into his face and the cracking of his nose was way louder than the voice had been.

 

Before he was able to come back to his senses, Woojin took a kick to the stomach. He fell backwards, against his car, laying on the car hood as he stared back at the aggressor. Blood ran into his mouth and he choked, gasping for air.

 

The stranger spoke again, not worried about anybody who could be seeing what was going on. “What do you think you’re doing? Who gave you the right?”

 

His vision was still blurry, and aside of the masculine voice he couldn’t make out anything about the person.

 

They aggressively kicked his knee in, making it twist against the car and Woojin groaned. This was it.

 

“Only I am allowed to know,” the stranger yelled, grabbing a container off the floor. It was red with a black cap, that much he was able to see.

 

“You’re pissing me off!” They screamed again. Woojin was still holding his stomach, the pain in his nose pulsed so violently that it made his whole head vibrate.

 

Woojin blinked multiple times, clearing his vision to inspect his opponent. He was out of breath, only coming through quick gasps. His heart was racing in his chest, beating against his ribcage as if it wanted to break out. “Who are you?”

 

Truth was, Woojin wasn’t ever going to find out who it was. His car was a little down the street, meaning Changbin couldn’t see the current events even if he was looking out of the window. Nobody else had yet come to his rescue. Woojin didn’t know the person’s identity, but he was extremely sure of something else.

 

The person stepped closer and emptied the content of the container on Woojin. It was only now that what was about to happen dawned on Woojin, and he had collected enough strength to put up a fight. He pushed himself off the hood, still choking on and spitting out the liquid, and attacked the person in front of him.

 

He ran into them, grabbing their hood and pulled it down to choke them. Woojin did his best to neglect the burning pain in the knee they had kicked. He had dropped the container, it’s remains flowing onto the street and to Woojin’s car.

 

“What the fuck do you want,” Woojin hissed, spitting blood into the person’s face as he pressed the words out.

 

But his heart dropped into his boots as soon as he had actually taken in their features.

 

It was Chan.

 

Not really, but similar. One eye was higher than the other and oddly big. The pupil hadn’t remained in the simple limitations of its circular shape, but popped like egg yolk and extended through the whites. The other eye was rather normal, but bloodshot and fierce. The lips looked exactly like Chan’s as well, albeit swollen and bloody, involuntarily pursed. Hair, height, everything about the person was almost exactly like Chan, he would count the face, but the odd disfigurement at the hand of presumably failed surgeries made him look bizarre and frightening.

 

He used Woojin’s surprise as an opportunity to free himself out of his grasp, by kicking his crotch and pulling out a pocket knife from an attachment to his belt. Woojin fell to the ground and was instantly cradled by whoever it was that . . . looked like Chan. But couldn’t possibly be him.

 

“I’m going to cut you up,” he said between clenched teeth, a vein prominent in his temple. Woojin didn’t doubt that he was capable of that. “Why do you keep doing that?”

 

Instead of using the pocket knife, the Chan imposter — how else would he call him? — slapped him across the face. To Woojin, it was as though choosing something less harmful and definitely not lethal over simply using the knife had way too personal undertones. Genuine upset? It was impossible to tell by looking at that face.

 

“I tolerated you in the beginning,” he continued, and Woojin realized that the blood on his lips was because he keeps biting down on them hard, “but you kept stepping out of line.”

 

Woojin didn’t care. He started shouting for help, starting shouting nonsense, anything to get anybody to leave their house and see what’s wrong. Chan obviously didn’t like that.

 

“Fuck you,” he spit, and searched the floor for the knife without breaking eye contact. When Woojin tried to get the man off him, he started punching Woojin in the chest.

 

Punctuating every single word he cussed at Woojin with a hit, he waited until Woojin needed time to fill his lungs with air to properly look for the knife. The mistake he made was that he turned his whole torso for that and Woojin rose abruptly, grabbing his arm and tearing him off himself.

 

He landed face first into the ground and turned to see Woojin trying to pull himself up by the car. He wanted to lash out for him, but then a shrill scream sounded from the other side of the road.

 

Woojin’s head instantly turned to face its source, a middle aged lady who had run onto the street after hearing their struggle. The man was already on his feet by now, except he wasn’t heading for Woojin but the lady instead. He figured he had time, Woojin believed.

 

“You shut up,” he yelled at the woman as he held out the knife in front of him and started waving it around aggressively. His hood had slipped off his head and Woojin saw the veins in his neck threatening to pop.

 

Woojin knew he couldn’t let him attack the woman. He was the focus, the real target, so he needed to do something to upset him and save himself at the same time.

 

He fumbled around to find his car keys and tore the driver’s door open, locking the car from inside when the imposter noticed and ran towards him.

 

Woojin panicked when the man picked up the container, its shape still having saved gas and started emptying it over the car. By now the woman should have dialed the police. There was no way she couldn’t have. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her run away, which was good. Soon he would be out of there too. But the problem that came to him at the most inconvenient time was . . . Changbin.

 

He still hadn’t gotten a grasp on the car keys. The stress and panic was messing with him, and then they slipped through his butter fingers onto the space in front of the seat. He retrieved them hastily, allowing himself to glance up one more time to meet the aggressor.

 

There he stood, lighting a match.

 

It was like he had punched all the air out of his lungs once again. The fumbling became more aggressive, and Woojin forced himself to slow down for merely one second—in which he managed to insert the key and start the car.

 

The man was lighting a second match. It was now that the stench of gasoline on his clothes burned his nose.

 

“Oh god, oh fuck, fucking help me somebody,” Woojin shouted at the top of his lungs, in vain, he knew, as the car muffled every sound he made. The woman was getting help, was she? She had seen his face, didn’t she?

 

He put the car in reverse and crashed into a vehicle behind him. Woojin tore the steering wheel around and left the spot, but it was too late.

 

The man had thrown his matches and the car hood had caught fire.

 

Woojin yelled a variety of profanity and desperate words for help, trying to ignore the fact that in this dark, early night it was only now that people would notice. Flames rising into the sky while he would be burned alive. The car was still rolling down the street as he tugged at the locked door basically begging it to let him out.

 

He backed into his seat as if that would shield him from the flames. He couldn’t spot the man through the fire. Woojin screamed and closed his eyes.

  
  
  


Albeit late, everyone in the neighborhood knew what was happening now. The man had long since ran off. Everyone ran onto the streets, seeking to help Woojin in whatever way they could. But it was too late.

 

The sound of Woojin’s car exploding, with him inside, had been what lured them outside.

  
  
  
  


...

  
  
  


Changbin heard it too. He was pressed against the window, trying to look through the bushes and past the trees to see the source of the flames. He was unsure as to how long Woojin was already gone, but he knew that he wasn’t there to have seen that. He wouldn’t be able to tell him when he got home, unless he stood by the police and eavesdropped until he found something out.

 

He sat on the windowsill, head rested against the glass when he closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander. Truth was, he didn’t think it was a good idea of Woojin to leave the house at this time of day. Especially considering their circumstances. But Woojin’s need for answers was insatiable and also understandable. He could survive a few hours on his own. He had before.

 

Changbin noticed movement. The light installed at this side of the house went on. Changbin glanced down and his heart jumped into his throat when he saw Chan.

 

Except, there was something odd about him. From above, Changbin was unable to pin-point what exactly it was in his facial features that made him look weird. Perhaps he was tired, making his eyes droopy. He was too far away, he couldn’t see properly.

 

Chan just stared at him from below. Why didn’t he just ring the bell? Changbin wondered and was in the process of unlocking the window when sirens startled him. The police station was quite close, Changbin recalled. After such an explosion they would race to attend.

 

Obviously, Chan had heard it too. When Changbin had unlocked the window and looked down to greet him, Chan was practically gone. He saw him run off, not onto the street, but somewhere into the bushes around the houses and far, far away from where the police would show up.

 

Changbin’s mouth fell open. He checked his wristwatch, noticing that Woojin had been gone for merely fifteen minutes. He hoped that it had been enough for Woojin to leave. Changbin wasn’t stupid.

 

Changbin was not stupid. After Chan’s ‘visit’, the explosion left him fearing the worst.

  
  
  
  
  


It was going to be a long, sleepless night, he thought.

 

Until the police knocked at the door, basically confirming his initial fear. Grief.

 

To make sure that it was indeed the police and not someone else, whoever it could be, Changbin looked out of the window and spotted a black SUV at the entrance. Officers were speaking into their phones. Changbin turned the door handle, but it didn’t open. Woojin had locked the door. There was no way he wouldn’t arise suspicions now.

 

He unlocked the window instead and leaned out of it, taking three officers by surprise.

 

“I’m sorry,” Changbin said and his voice was surprisingly shaky. “My friend locked the door before he left and I don’t have any keys.”

 

“That’s no problem, step away from the door,” the woman said and nodded at Changbin to get out of the way. Instead of retreating into the kitchen, he climbed onto the windowsill.

 

A few seconds passed in which the woman cocked her gun and shot the handle, making the door swing open due to the pressure. Splinters of wood flew around and although he was out of reach, Changbin still covered his eyes.

 

Changbin had been right. It was going to be a long night.

  
  
  
  


Changbin had told them everything. Everything they needed to know. They concluded that he wasn’t responsible for Woojin’s death, since he had indeed been locked into the house for quite a while. When they first told him that it was Woojin’s car that had exploded, killing him, Changbin got all choked up. Tears slipped down his face and he realized that all his fears had been . . . irrational, no, but selfish.

 

He wasn’t so innocent himself, right?

 

All this time he feared that if he had gone to the police, they would find something on him stalking Chan. If he had, though, Woojin would probably still be alive. In fact, he was sure of that.

 

And so he told them everything. Upon the question if he knew who could have killed Woojin. He told them that for a few weeks now a stalker had been terrorizing not only him, but also Woojin and the person he liked. He told them about the photos, the messages, the phones and the gardening house. Changbin told them that Woojin wanted to help them. But what he couldn’t bring himself to explain was that it all started because he saw Changbin around Chan’s house when he shouldn’t have been there. Instead, he focused on the fact that just a few minutes earlier someone had appeared.

 

Now, Changbin was walking the police around the house. He had given them access to his email server so they could see some of the pictures. Most of them were lost when Woojin smashed the phones, which they classified as a rational response. Changbin hadn't gone through the trouble of deleting the pictures of Chan Changbin had taken, because in the email server it didn't look like they were from him. It still made his heart beat extremely fast.

 

He showed them that Woojin walked around the house before he left, to make sure that everything was locked so that nobody could get inside and terrorize him. Changbin’s heart ached thinking about how Woojin took every possible precaution to ensure that he was safe.

 

“And the person who showed up at the house and ran away,” the woman began, “Do you have any recollection of how they looked like? Any distinct facial features you were able to make out or recognize?”

 

Changbin’s heart dropped into his boots. How was he going to explain that? “Yes . . . in fact, I do. This will be complicated, but believe me. They looked almost exactly like Bang Chan, the . . . man I told you about, whom I liked. Um, but believe me it wasn’t him! There was something odd about his facial features. As if he was trying to look like Chan.”

 

“So, you’re saying someone who looks like Bang Chan is responsible for this? You said this all happened at the hands of a stalker, and Bang Chan is the man that you love. Trying to look like Chan . . . that sounds like a sicko to me.”

 

“It’s a _stalker,_ ” the guy by her side taking notes said. “Stalkers are known for being disgusting motherfuckers.”

 

Changbin felt blood rush into his face. Shame?

 

The woman who had been sat at the kitchen table, using Woojin’s laptop to access Changbin’s email, appeared in the window. “You won’t believe what I just got.”

 

The three rushed inside to join her at the table, and she called up a recent email. Very recent. From five minutes ago.

 

She opened the photo attachment which turned out to be a photo of . . . him. Not Chan, but similar. His eyes were strange, sending a chill down Changbin’s spine. From above he hadn’t really seen that. He had photographed himself and simply sent it to the police. Just like that. There had to be an intention behind it, one of the unpleasant kind.

 

“This . . . is not Bang Chan? Are you sure?” The lady asked.

 

Changbin looked at her weird for a moment, but he realized that she was being cautious. “Yes. You can call up our work website. There’s a picture of the real Chan, as he is currently the boss, if you don't believe the emails.”

 

They did what Changbin suggested and compared the photos. Except for the eyes, the two did look exactly the same. Only the imposter's lips were a little bruised. He even had the same smile as Chan, the shy one he always shows on pictures. Changbin couldn’t believe that there was somebody capable of imitating that.

 

The man then pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “We got everything we need, there’s a picture of the killer. A stalker, too. Sending it around in a few seconds. Watch out, he modified his appearance to look like someone else who is innocent. A disfigurement in the area of the eyes will give him away, though. Real one is Bang Chan. Our killer’s identity is unknown.”

 

They explained that they would head back to take a look at the crime scene while the woman at the laptop would stay to try and access the photos by logging into iMessage using Changbin’s number.

 

Changbin took the back door to get Woojin’s bike. His own car was home. There was no way he would be staying over tonight and he also didn’t want to be escorted by the police. His friend was gone, he needed to grieve. He couldn’t do that in Woojin’s house.

 

But where would he go?

 

His own house wasn’t safe. Chan’s old apartment wasn’t safe. He could call Chan and ask if he was allowed to join him at his parents’ . . . no. No. He wouldn’t do that. If it meant driving around aimlessly for the whole night, that was okay. Changbin had his wallet with him, he could cycle to a place where he could book a room for a night. Or a week. Or until the culprit was found.

 

He didn’t doubt the police would search his house too. The pictures of Chan, everything he had on his laptop . . . he had to delete it before they saw it. But not now. Like they wouldn’t go to his place now.

 

Tomorrow was another day.

 

He took the three steps down and removed the rusty chain from Woojin’s bike. It wasn’t locked, it should just give the impression that it was. Changbin sighed, but that sigh turned into a sob and soon he was rubbing his eyes trying to stop the tears from coming.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It was all his fault. There was no denying that.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“What is wrong with me . . .” Changbin’s hand rested on the handle of the bike. Frustration washed over him. What was he trying, the police wouldn’t let him go anyways! He had to stay until they let him go, otherwise they would think he was involved in the murder of Kim Woojin. But he wasn’t. At this point, he might as well have been. He lost.

 

Changbin wanted to go home.

 

He wanted all of this to stop. Or never have happened. He wanted to take back everything he did that ended with Woojin dead and Chan gone. He wanted his house to be safe again and his friend by his side. It was all his fault.

 

Changbin turned around and froze.

 

A hand covered his mouth and pushed something deep into his throat. He choked, but it didn’t go further; it was a cloth gag and Changbin couldn’t spit it out. It was the face from the photos, centimeters from his own. The messed up eye seemed to pierce a hole into Changbin and he couldn’t twist himself out of his grasp.

 

Changbin tore at and tried to scratch the hands around his throat as he struggled to get rid of the gag at the same time. His world was dizzy, rotating around him and giving him troubles to collect himself. Changbin couldn’t scream. He couldn’t make any sound that could help him.

 

The person started whispering things into Changbin’s ear as he kept hitting the large, strong hands and scratching them with his fragile fingers in vain. Tears shot into his eyes. He didn’t want to listen to what he was saying. He couldn’t believe he’d had those same thoughts about Chan.

 

Changbin started winding and bending forward as the person separated one hand from his throat and started running it all over his body. Thankfully, it didn’t stop at the places he didn’t want it to stop. He was just trying to mess with Changbin, and he succeeded.

 

He tried to kick the bike to make any kind of noise, really, anything as he tried to make the man let go of him. Luckily he didn’t stand too far away and the bike made a noise as it fall back again the house, the old lock rattling when it fell to the ground. But that wasn’t loud enough.

 

“It’s okay, Changbin, it’s okay,” he hushed into Changbin’s ear but it wasn’t true.

 

His hand stopped running over his leg and disappeared into his pocket. Changbin kicked back and hit a leg, making the man stumble away. He tried to use that as an opportunity to at least remove the gag so he could yell for help at the top of his lungs, but before he knew it, he was already in the man’s arms once more.

 

There was no escape this time. He had a knife.

 

“Changbin, I don’t want to cut your pretty skin,” the man hushed and Changbin bit down on the gag, just wishing it would dissolve. “Do as I say.”

 

He held the knife to Changbin’s throat, the other arm wrapped around Changbin’s waist to ensure that he wouldn’t get away.

 

It was bold, daring. And ironic. Police was merely a few meters away. They were in the vicinity, and if Changbin just managed to make one suspicious sound, he would be saved. Only one. One fucking sound that was loud enough.

 

He didn’t stop trying to scratch and pry the fingers off him, he didn’t stop winding in his grasp even though there was a knife held to his throat and he could feel it.

 

“We’re going to take a shortcut through the bushes, and then you’ll get into my car, Changbin,” he instructed, his voice strangely nasal. Although he almost looked like Chan, he sure as hell didn’t sound like him. It was like a parody, an awful joke.

 

As Changbin kept moving, a thought crossed his mind. Was he getting what he deserved?

 

They slowly started moving backwards. An abrupt jump back swept Changbin off his feet and he fell into the man, but despite his slim frame it didn’t seem to have moved him at all.

 

Woojin would have wanted him to keep fighting. So he did. Even if that meant feeling the blade draw blood through a thin line along his throat. It wasn’t anything bad yet. And although the man threatened him with it, it didn’t seem as though he was actually going to use the knife on him. Changbin was the one who created the injury by trying to defend himself.

 

But even though he was slimmer, and just around Changbin’s own height, he was way stronger. They approached the bushes quickly, and Changbin spotted a light out of the corner of his eyes. It was probably the stranger’s car.

 

“You, I like you. You’re not like all the other ones,” the man continued, and Changbin hated his voice. If he could, he would rip his vocal chords out. He had no patience for it. Changbin didn’t want to fucking hear that.

 

“You’re just like me. Except there’s one difference, you know what that is?” The man asked him, and the pressure he applied to the knife at his throat decreased. Changbin tried to shake his head, even though it was dangerous for him. They were getting into the bushes now, and _thank god,_ it was _rustling._

 

He removed the knife from his throat and held the tip to Changbin’s temple. “Sometimes, you let this get in the way of all the fun. And sometimes, you don’t use it at all. Ever considered that there might be something wrong with you?” He laughed, even more annoying than his voice. “I’m joking, I’m joking, of course. I’m just saying that you need to pick a side.”

 

He had lowered his voice as they stepped through the bushes, but every step they made resulted in rustling and was hopefully as loud as Changbin perceived it to be. He started stepping down harder to support it.

 

“Hey!” Someone yelled from afar, and a flashlight fell onto them. Then whistling.

 

The man cussed, the light exposing them getting closer. More voices. Police?

 

He buried the tip of the knife in Changbin’s temple and dragged it all the way down to his throat, cutting his cheek and open and making Changbin scream—a choked, muffled sound that shook his whole body because it couldn’t be let out. Before he dragged the knife across Changbin’s throat, he muttered, “I liked that.”

 

Then he let go of and pushed Changbin, who was choking on his own blood, trying to cover the slit with his hands as he landed face first on the grass. Clicking was heard, the car unlocking.

 

The police shouted multiple things Changbin couldn’t understand. Shots fell and rang in Changbin’s ears—temporarily deaf, Changbin couldn’t make out what they said to him. What they yelled at the man. He didn’t hear what the person cradling him in their arms was saying.

 

But what Changbin knew was that he was not going to die.

 

Not now.  

  
  
  
  
  
  


Changbin woke to an unknown face. He couldn’t move his head and he was tucked into a bed that wasn’t his. At first, Changbin panicked, but then the whites of the room and the signs at the door told him that he was in a hospital. He wasn’t dead. Good.

 

His head was completely bandaged and so was his throat. Although he’d had an odd feeling telling him that he would survive the attack, he was still surprised to find that he hadn’t bled out or choked on his own blood. The attack. Chills ran down his spine as the disfigured face made an appearance in front of his inner eye. That couldn’t have been real. It couldn’t have been.

 

“Seo Changbin?”

 

The woman moved closer with her chair, aware of the fact that Changbin couldn’t turn his head.

 

“Your situation appears to be fairly complicated,” she spoke up, drew her badge to reveal her identity and profession as a detective. “Stalker harassed stalker. You got a taste of your own medicine there. Except you appeared on the radar of a serial killer. And he must have really, really liked you—”

 

He was sure his heart stopped beating for a moment. They knew. They _knew._

 

“—considering the surgeries he underwent to look just like the person you loved so much you stalked him. Wow,” she finished and her piercing eyes captured his for a moment too long. His hands were shaking on his stomach below the sheets. Changbin was petrified.

 

“There are a lot of things I have to fill you in on and explain. Bang Chan has been notified and he is filing for a restraining order probably at this very moment. I know I shouldn’t do this, but he asked me to tell you: Fuck you. Anyway, you didn’t disrupt his peace or left any signs of trespassing which means we can’t imprison you. You’ll be fined, most likely. However I suggest you rethink your actions and start your life over again. Somewhere else. Far away from Bang Chan. Do you hear me?”

 

Of course. And he fucking hated it. Changbin was a rational person, he should have understood that he had been caught doing wrong and that was all. Ripping off his ears appeared to be a better option in this very moment. Changbin just swallowed, eyelids falling so that it looked like his eyes were almost shut. He still saw the detective’s face clearly. And he wanted to claw her eyes out.

 

She repeated her question, even though she shouldn’t have expected an answer. It was clear.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Changbin responded, the bitterness in his tone impossible to overhear.

 

The lady hummed, then folded her hands in her lap. She looked over her shoulder as if to see if someone unauthorized was listening.

 

Then, “And the killer. He keeps sending photos to your number. Mostly of his victims. Those who still had their faces were identified as missing people, no clues on where they are yet. His photos were the reveal that there’s a killer behind all this.”

 

She paused, examining Changbin’s non-existent reaction. His eyes were so heavy. His fists trapping his shirt. Changbin still looked at her, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how ugly she was. How fucking ugly she was.

 

The detective leaned forward, lowering her voice. The expression she adopted was completely different now, leaving professionalism and heading into direction of personal hatred. “Even after all this shit, you got away lucky. A fee. A damn fee you have to pay. According to the officer your friend Kim Woojin talked to, you didn’t want to call the police earlier. Well, that cost your friend his life.”

 

Despite the emotionless pit he fell into, Changbin’s heart still ached upon hearing her words.

 

“I really hope you’ll never learn how to live with that,” she added, voice still low and her eyes unreadable. But Changbin only thought about the aching in his chest. “I really hope the guilt will suffocate you.”

 

His heart had not hurt when the detective announced Chan’s restraining order.

 

“With that being said, a proper investigation to find the stalker slash serial killer has begun now.”

 

Looks like he didn’t care that much for Chan after all. If his heart didn’t react, that must have been the reason. All this hard work, for someone whom his heart didn’t even react to anymore. A passing feeling? How fucking pitiful. All of this for a passing feeling.

 

But Woojin? For him, Changbin’s heart cried.

 

He should have fallen for Woojin instead. Maybe he had fallen for Woojin and he hadn’t realized it. Clung to a stupid crush on fucking _Bang Chan_ instead. What was so great about him anyway?

 

Kim Woojin.

 

Changbin was allowed to enter Woojin’s house whenever he wanted to. He was allowed to come and go as he pleased. And if he wanted pictures of Woojin, he could just ask him. On most of them they would even be depicted _together._ It all meant that Changbin could have done what he wanted and Woojin wouldn’t have minded. And if Changbin had wanted to make Woojin fall for him, he probably would have been successful. Now he was dead.

 

He tried to recall opportunities, times where Changbin and Woojin’s friendship could have taken a turn into a different direction. There weren’t many that came to mind and Changbin thought that was a pity. Had he just not clung to Bang Chan . . .

  
  


Changbin now had an answer to his question. Loving Woojin would have allowed him to do whatever he wanted and Woojin would have followed.

 

He should have fallen for Woojin instead.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for reasons i don't know . i guess i like doing my bias, baby changbin, dirty ?


End file.
